I had probably a dozen people ask me if I was going to Lollapalooza this year. My response to them was always the same: “No, I think I’m going to Cornerstone instead.” And the reply was usually a quizzical look. Yes, I was passing up the chance to see Green Day and Soundgarden and numerous other popular acts in Grant Park to hang out at a Christian music festival in the middle of nowhere.

And you know what? I’d make the same decision again in a heartbeat.

Last year’s Lollapalooza experience convinced me that I never want to do it again, especially now that they’ve opened the gates up to 20,000 more people. I had fun, but it was a festival full of people who didn’t care if I lived or died, and there were just too many of those people for me to fully enjoy myself. Cornerstone, on the other hand, is smaller – the gallery stage, where I spent most of my time, can hold about 800 people – and infinitely nicer. The vibe there is love and joy, music and fun.

Plus – and I promise you, this is true – there’s more truly great music at Cornerstone than at Lollapalooza. I saw some old favorites, and made a bunch of new ones this year – a full list of bands to check out is at the bottom of this column. I had a fantastic time at the fest this year, and I’d love to do it again next year. I owe lots of thanks to Jeff Elbel, who roomed with me, and to Chris MacIntosh, Grandfather Rock himself, who hung out with me.

Each day, after the festivities ended, I posted a summary on my blog. What follows are those posts, reworked and edited. I know, it’s like cheating, but I also wrote a 2,200-word review of the Choir’s amazing new album, Burning Like the Midnight Sun, this week, and you can find that here. For now, here are the details on my Pilgrimage to Bushnell.

* * * * *

Day One – June 30, 2010

Gentle readers, I am bone tired.

I decided last year that I am just too old for all-day music festivals. This is a hard pill to swallow, but Lollapalooza really did me in last summer. Cornerstone, the annual Jesus People USA party in Bushnell, IL (roughly three hours from my house), is smaller and easier, but 13 hours of sun and music still took its toll on me today. Don’t get old. It’s depressing.

So if I’d already decided I was too ancient and decrepit for this sort of thing, why am I at Cornerstone this year? Well, that’s where the corollaries to the “too old” rule come into play. If enough stars align, enough top-of-the-heap acts turn up on the roster, I’ll be in. I’m too much of an obsessive fan to do anything else. Lollapalooza and Pitchfork seemed like total wastes of time this year, but Cornerstone… well, three big stars aligned, plus my friend Jeff Elbel agreed to split the cost of a hotel room, so here I am.

It’s been five years since I ventured out to Cornerstone Farm, a giant field in the middle of nowhere. In 2005, my response was mixed – I loved the music, but railed against the odd and all-pervasive commercialism, the Jesus-peddling I saw everywhere. I’m not sure if the fest has changed, or if I’ve mellowed out, but what struck me this time is just how cool Cornerstone is. It’s a non-stop hippie party, the kind of festival at which people leave their bags on their seats to mark them, unafraid that anything will be stolen. There’s a bike park, there’s a grocery store, there are campers and tents and RVs everywhere, and the overall vibe is just fun.

When I was a kid in Massachusetts, discovering all this cool music that no one I knew had ever heard of (The Choir, Daniel Amos, the Prayer Chain, etc.), I thought of Cornerstone as this magical faraway land I would likely never get to visit. I still think it’s kind of magical, even though I live here now, and this is my third time. The feeling is just different. Attendance is down this year, the merch tents are dark and dispiriting places, and some people I talked to are certain that Cornerstone is petering out. But still, everyone’s just happy to be there, and to hear music they can’t hear anywhere else.

As much as I try to say that I’m just in it for the music, I know it’s not true. I listen to this stuff, and I come to this festival, to confront my own faith, or lack thereof, and to see the world through the prism of these fascinating artists, if only for a little while. I’m not interested in simple declarations of faith – I could go to the main stage for that, if I wanted to, but I don’t. TobyMac makes me want to run away screaming. But I’m also not interested in avoiding the topic, either. As a man with a very abstract spiritualism (and virtually no religious tendencies), I want faith presented to me in new ways, ones that will make me think about it and consider my own beliefs.

While watching the Glenn Kaiser Band play the Gallery Stage today, I thought about this little corner of the music world, and how it’s perceived. Glenn Kaiser is easily one of the best blues guitarists in Chicago, if not the country. Why don’t you know who he is? Well, Glenn preaches. A lot. His set is about 50% killer blues riffing, and 50% talking – this time, he spoke about how Christians should get out of their churches and help their neighbors, a topic well worth visiting, in my view.

If Glenn stopped his preaching and just played, he wouldn’t be true to himself. But because he’s true to himself, no one knows how good he is. It’s very strange to me. Admittedly, Glenn Kaiser can be a lot to take in all at once, but if there’s any act on the festival bill that should be too Jesus-y for me, it’s him. And I loved listening to his set this afternoon. His perspective is not my perspective, but I enjoy hearing it, and imagining the world through his eyes.

But let’s talk about those aligning stars, before I collapse from exhaustion. I said three of them lined up for me (and I think three is the minimum it would take to get me to this fest), and two of them played today. The first is, of course, the Lost Dogs, that spiritual pop supergroup of Mike Roe, Terry Taylor, Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong, four guys I’ve been listening to since I was 16 years old.

The Dogs actually played throughout the day, in various combinations. Roe started things off with an acoustic set full of the old gospel and blues songs he’s been fascinated by recently. I’ve said it before, but give me Mike Roe and an acoustic guitar, and I’ll be happy for hours. Taylor then took to the stage for a trio set (with Roe on bass and Hindalong on drums) that flipped through some of his more obscure back pages. (He actually played “I Had a Bad Experience With the CIA and Now I’m Gonna Show You My Feminine Side.” I would have been happy if he’d merely said the title from the Cornerstone stage.)

Roe and Daugherty then did a set of covers and oldies, which was nice. Daugherty, who sings with the Choir, has a high and clear voice, while Roe’s is more typical bluesman, more rough than smooth. Together they sounded elegant. The highlight, for me, was “Dunce Cap,” my favorite Lost Dogs song, and one I’d never heard live.

The Dogs then played a full-on rock and roll set at 10 p.m., and man, it was great. Their new album, Old Angel, is an absolute masterpiece, and it seems to have revitalized these aging troubadours. Every second of their set rippled with energy. Hindalong remains the most entertaining drummer on the planet to watch – his facial expressions are priceless – and the rapport between the four of them is at an all-time high.

The second of my stars tonight was Iona, a five-piece from the U.K. I’ve been listening to Iona for almost 20 years now, and I’ve never seen them live before. It was amazing. I don’t know how to describe Iona. They’re like Celtic folk prog rock, like Rush jamming with Enya, and it sounds like it would be horrible, but it works brilliantly. 15-minute songs based on Celtic prayers with unison bagpipe and electric guitar solos, all capped off with the lovely voice of Joanne Hogg. They were great.

And you want to know why I consider Cornerstone magical? Try this. At 1:30 in the morning, Iona closed out their main set with a piece called “Castlerigg,” kind of an Irish jig on Jolt Cola. Even after 12 solid hours of music, everyone in the place – hundreds of people – got up and started dancing. It was pure joy in motion, and an awesome thing to be a part of.

Some stray observations and notes:

My roommate Jeff Elbel played another strong set of tunes with his ever-expansive band Ping – nine musicians this time. Several new songs, all of them good. Jeff also manages the gallery stage, where all the acts I saw today played, and he gets precious little thanks or sleep for the privilege. He’s much more tired than I am right now, and I’m pretty much wiped out.

The discovery of the festival so far is Shel, a band I was ready to laugh off. Four teenage sisters (drums, piano, mandolin and violin) backed up by their father on guitar. Sounds awful, right? But they were awesome. They played complex folk-rock, harmonized beautifully (especially on the more bizarre numbers), and capped it off with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore.” I was impressed.

The cafe near the Gallery Stage has a lemonade-and-iced-tea blend drink for sale. It’s called a Robert Palmer. That’s right, Robert Palmer, not Arnold. So I asked the kid behind the counter why, and he grinned and replied, “Because it’s simply irresistible.”

* * * * *

Day Two – July 1, 2010

Tired doesn’t even describe it today.

I woke up at about 8:30 a.m., because that’s just what I do – I haven’t slept past 8:30 in ages. I couldn’t get back to slumberland, so today I did 12 hours of music on four hours of sleep. You’ll forgive me if I keep this brief, although I don’t really think I will.

I’m going to say this as plainly as I can: the reason I got out of bed this morning at all was the Choir. I’ve been a fan for 20 years, and I’ve seen them play four times now. The last time was in 2005, which, sadly enough, was the last time they reconvened on stage. So after a half-decade without Choir shows, I was pretty stoked for tonight’s late-night performance.

I’ve been upfront about my absence of faith, but here’s one thing I will say: every time I get to see the Choir play, I thank God I’m alive. For one thing, it’s such a rare occurrence, and for another, every show may well be the last. And for a third, the Choir spins such a magical atmosphere each time out, it’s like living through a particularly vivid dream. I remember my first Choir concert, in 2001, after 11 years of listening to their records over and over again. I could scarcely believe it was happening – here were these people I’d only seen in photographs, playing this music I love intensely right in front of me. Magic.

If I ever needed confirmation that my heroes are human, tonight provided it. I don’t want to say this, but tonight was a bad Choir show. The band clearly hadn’t practiced much, and there were wrong notes galore, shifting tempos, forgotten lyrics, and a couple of spectacular flameouts. They tried to get through three new songs (from their wonderful new album Burning Like the Midnight Sun), and watched helplessly as they fell apart. The set was heavy on their twin high water marks Chase the Kangaroo and Circle Slide, and featured songs this band has been playing for 20 years. And yet, in Derri Daugherty’s own words, it was rough.

Despite all that, I still enjoyed myself. Watching these guys play is always fun, and these songs are so permanently etched into my soul that even a bad performance couldn’t spoil them. I feel lucky to have seen this show, and lucky to be a fan of this band. And the hundreds who gathered to watch the Choir’s return to the gallery stage all seemed to feel the same way. This is our band, and if they have an off night, we’ll help them through it. We love them. Tonight of all nights, we love them.

And every time I get to hear them play that bit in the middle of “Circle Slide,” when they all just start making as much pretty noise as they can for as long as they can, my heart sings. “Circle Slide” was magnificent tonight. It’s the kind of song that lifts you up and twirls you around, higher and higher. I wish the entire show had been as good, but hey, I got to see the Choir play one more time. I’m very lucky.

Also, I can console myself by listening to Burning Like the Midnight Sun over and over again. For the second time in a row, they’ve made their best album since Circle Slide.

I expected the rest of my day would be long and boring while I waited for the Choir to play. But I took in some superb performances today, and discovered some new favorites. Today’s gallery stage lineup was assembled by John Thompson of the Wayside, formerly of Aurora, Illinois and now of Nashville. Thompson brought several of his fellow Nashville troubadours up north with him, and they were all quite good.

There was songwriter Kate York, whose clear voice and lovely tunes were captivating even with no accompaniment. “It Rains Here Too” may be the prettiest sad song I’ve heard in years. Brooke Wagonner played a set of Regina Spektor-ish piano pop, quirky and dramatic. And the Farewell Drifters showed off their chops – they’re a bluegrass band (two guitars, stand-up bass, mandolin and fiddle) that plays well-written pop songs with great harmonies. Well worth checking out.

The Wayside closed out the New Nashville portion of the program, playing a selection from their new one, Spiritual Songs. Very nice stuff, traditional and church-y, but well-arranged. I must confess, though, I ducked out for a bit before the Wayside took the stage, to go see metal maniacs Sacred Warrior. I used to listen to them back in my teenage metalhead days, and their brand of Queensryche-esque rock still made me smile.

And Jeff Elbel and Ping’s set on one of the smaller side stages was the most fun moment of my day. Seven musicians crammed onto a tiny stage, playing a ragged set full of splendid covers, from “The Whole of the Moon” to “The Book of Love” to Chagall Guevara’s massive “Violent Blue.” It was an absolute blast, and the 40 or so people privileged enough to see it all had a great time. Plus, Jeff gave away a plaster cast of his teeth to one lucky audience member. You can’t top that.

So even though the Choir show wasn’t all it could have been, today’s lineup was a good one. Tomorrow I get to close this whole thing out with Over the Rhine, and I can’t think of anything better. Wait, no, I can – sleeping for six or seven hours straight. I think I’ll try that. Check back here to see if I was successful.

* * * * *

Day Three – July 2, 2010

So I’ve been reading this book by Daniel J. Levitin called The World in Six Songs. In it, Levitin posits that music is an evolutionary necessity, an absolutely vital part of our human existence. We create music because we have to, because our brains are wired to express and receive information and emotions through song. Music is, Levitin says, a biological imperative. We sing because we are, and we are, in large part, because we sing.

I see that everywhere I look at Cornerstone. Every few feet, someone is making music, and I don’t just mean the bands on the myriad of stages. Small groups harmonize in the middle of the walking path. A kid with a guitar spins stories while his friend keeps time on a plastic bucket. One of the coolest things I saw all week was a collective of acoustic players gathered inside an unused silo on the farm grounds, singing and taking in the ambiance.

Music is part of our hardware, and music festivals like Cornerstone are places we can connect on that deep, spiritual level. For me personally, I haven’t gone a day without listening to music since… well, I can’t even tell you. And when I meet someone, most often the first thing I want to know about them is what kind of music they like. I’m always on the lookout for new musical experiences, new connections.

Friday was new discovery day at Cornerstone. I knew going in this would be the day with the fewest expectations. None of my well-aligned stars found their way into Friday’s lineup – the headliner at the gallery stage was Over the Rhine, a band I love dearly, but one I’ve seen more than half a dozen times. OtR played twice, once acoustically and once with their full electric sound. They debuted some new songs from the upcoming album The Long Surrender. Their sets were terrific, as always, and I can’t think of a better way to bid the 2010 Cornerstone experience goodbye than listening to Karin Bergquist sing.

But before today, I’d never heard of most of the other bands I took in. And now I have some new favorites (and a bunch of new CDs I haven’t heard yet). I started the day by breaking my moratorium on the main stage – I saw Photoside Cafe, after hearing nothing but good things about them for two days. They were terrific. People told me they resemble the Dave Matthews Band, but they don’t. They sound almost exactly like the Levellers – loud, aggressive folk-rock, with a violin at the center.

Dramatic rockers Dignan knocked me out with their rising-falling-rising-again guitar landscapes. Their album is called Cheaters and Thieves, and if it’s half as good as their set today, I’ll be happy. Paper Route was less impressive, although the crowd was into it. To me, it seemed like they stole Mutemath’s schtick: the drummer is energetic and entertaining in exactly the same ways Darren King is, everyone in the band played percussion at certain points, the show was highly choreographed. The difference is, Paper Route’s songs aren’t as strong. But they have potential.

But the find of the festival, for me, was Timbre. Yes, her name is Timbre. She plays a harp and sings, and her band is extraordinarily diverse, playing toy pianos, oboes, accordions and dozens of other instruments. One song featured a section in what I counted as 21/8, a most bizarre time signature, and at another point, everyone in the band crowded around Timbre, playing parts on her harp – it sounded like a web of plucked strings. Her new album, Little Flowers, includes a cover of Radiohead’s “Like Spinning Plates.” I can’t wait to hear this.

And then there was Eisley, a band I’ve always enjoyed. This sister act has completed its third album, evidently, but it’s lost in record label hell, and may never come out. Which is a shame, because the new song they played tonight (“Sad”) is excellent. Eisley is an energetic and melodic pop band with chops and harmonies and everything going for them. I hope they sort out their label situation soon, because they’re too good to languish for long.

And that’s it, the sum total of my Cornerstone ride this year. I heard from a lot of people how bad attendance was this year, and how depressing the festival was, but I didn’t feel much of that. There was enough extraordinary music to keep me going, even on virtually no sleep. Aside from that unfortunate Choir show, everything went better than I expected.I’m off to dreamland, my third Cornerstone behind me. Special thanks to Jeff Elbel for putting me up for the week, and to everyone I met and talked with. You all helped make a special experience even more so.

Good night, good night.

* * * * *

Here’s a list of bands I enjoyed this year, many of them new discoveries, with links so you can hear them:

The Lost Dogs: www.thelostdogs.com, www.myspace.com/thelostdogsmusic
The Choir: www.thechoir.net, www.myspace.com/thechoir
Iona: www.iona.uk.com, www.myspace.com/ionauk
Over the Rhine: www.overtherhine.com, www.myspace.com/overtherhine
Jeff Elbel and Ping: www.marathonrecords.com, www.myspace.com/jeff_elbel
Glenn Kaiser Band: www.glennkaiser.com, www.myspace.com/glennkaiserband
The Wayside: www.thewayside.info, www.myspace.com/thewayside
Kate York: www.myspace.com/kateyork
Brooke Waggoner: www.brookewaggoner.com, www.myspace.com/brookewaggoner
The Farewell Drifters: www.thefarewelldrifters.com, www.myspace.com/thefarewelldrifters
Shel: www.iloveshel.com, www.myspace.com/iloveshel
Photoside Café: www.photosidecafe.com, www.myspace.com/photosidecafe
Dignan: www.myspace.com/dignan
Paper Route: www.paperrouteonline.com, www.myspace.com/paperroute
Timbre: www.myspace.com/timbre
Eisley: www.eisley.com, www.myspace.com/eisley
The festival itself: www.cornerstonefestival.com

Thanks again to everyone who made my third C-Stone experience a special one. I’ll be putting reviews of the new CDs I bought up at my blog as I listen to them. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m writing this from limbo right now.

This season of Doctor Who, the 31st, has been one of the program’s very best. New Doctor Matt Smith was clearly born to play this role, and new showrunner Steven Moffat overcame some early hurdles to deliver a fine, fine set of stories, all of which wrap together in a 13-episode arc. I’ve been excited about new Doctor Who every Saturday since Easter, but because I live on this side of the pond, I’ve had a few hours of limbo every week, between the episode airing in Britain and becoming available online.

These limbo hours are exceedingly difficult this week. The season finale, “The Big Bang,” finished airing about an hour ago, and spoiler-free reactions I’ve seen have been mixed. The penultimate episode, “The Pandorica Opens,” was amazing, and if Moffat sticks his landing, it will cap off an outstanding season. But I don’t know if he’s pulled it off yet, and I won’t for at least six more hours. It’s frustrating.

So here I sit, distracting myself by writing another silly music column. This week, I’ve got three remarkably different artists who all rely on electronic beats and computers to create their music. And yet, all three have delivered remarkably emotional pieces of work (yes, even the one without any lyrics). Dive in? Sure, let’s.

* * * * *

A decade ago, I named Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP the best album of 2000. I’ve gone back and forth on that decision since. At the time, I felt we were witnessing the rise of an Important Artist, one with a deep satirical bent and incredible skills at the mic. Marshall Mathers is still a thrilling piece of work, one that leaps over lines of taste and social responsibility with manic glee, and hands out cop-outs like Twizzlers.

But Em’s subsequent work has blunted the impact of his first two records. He closed out his opening trilogy with the surprisingly sensitive The Eminem Show in 2002, then fell flat on his face with 2004’s Encore, a childish, vile, overlong waste that did incalculable damage to his legacy. And then he disappeared for five years, and no one missed him. It wasn’t that long ago that Eminem had the pop cultural reach to pull off his grand-scale satire, but alter ego Slim Shady only works if impressionable people are listening to him.

Last year’s Relapse appeared to be the final nail in the coffin. Half the album was a riveting travelogue through drug detox hell, but the other half was a depressing retread, pulling up all Mathers’ old tropes: graphic violence, celeb-baiting, and complaining about his mom and ex-wife. Relapse offered nothing new, and tried so hard to be shocking that much of it was just boring. Eminem still has the skill – his internal rhyme structure is second to none, his rapid-fire delivery mesmerizing. But he ran out of things to say 10 years ago, and every album after The Marshall Mathers LP (or at least The Eminem Show) has been unnecessary.

I guess, then, it’s faint praise to call his sixth album, Recovery, the least unnecessary of Eminem’s latter-day career. But you know what? I don’t want to damn this album that way. Recovery is a genuine surprise – far from being Relapse’s evil twin, this is Mathers finally flipping over his own story and starting again. This is, for Eminem, a remarkably mature album – Slim Shady is name-checked but never appears, Mathers actually apologizes for wasting our time over the past decade, and he spends 16 tracks trying desperately to prove that he’s still worth listening to. He doesn’t do this though hip-hop bravado, though. Recovery sounds like one of his 12 steps, an album about doing everything possible to be whole once more.

Does that sound boring? I guess it depends on what you want from Eminem. Ever since The Eminem Show I’ve been pulling for him to make an album like this, one that’s heart-on-sleeve sincere and still lyrically dazzling. Given how deep Mathers has gone before, how much of himself he’s revealed, I couldn’t figure out why playing Slim Shady still held any attraction for him. On Recovery, Mathers dispenses with his multiple personalities, thereby denying himself his cop-outs, and raps as himself for an entire album. This is exactly what I’ve wanted for a long time.

I can’t tell you how bracing it is heaing “Talkin’ 2 Myself” for the first time. The album’s second track, “Talkin’” is the first of many songs here about Mathers’ healing process, but he actually cops to the fact that Encore and Relapse weren’t good discs. “I got something to prove to fans ‘cause I feel like I let ‘em down, so please accept my apology, I finally feel like I’m back to normal,” he says, and it’s like a gauntlet. After that, Recovery has to deliver, and for the most part, it does.

The problem is this: instead of just going ahead and making a comeback album, Eminem has written an album all about making a comeback album. Once the untitled hidden track fades, you almost expect the real record to start. But as a statement about coming back, it works well. The beats here are strong, but for the first time in ages, Eminem actually elevates them with his wordplay. His collaboration with Pink, “Won’t Back Down,” is a grimy march, and Em spits the lyrics out like a gatling gun. “Cinderella Man” is a highlight, the melodic vocalists giving it an earthy feel, and “Almost Famous” is a modern Eminem masterpiece.

Here’s how good Eminem is on this album. On “Talkin’ 2 Myself,” he makes a big deal about the fact that he once considered writing a diss song against Lil Wayne, humbly concluding he’d get his ass handed to him. Seven songs later, he gives the first half of “No Love” to Wayne himself, and then, in the song’s second half, blows him out of the water. The final stretches of “No Love” are astounding, Mathers skipping through a hundred rhythmic changes and rhyming every word except the ones you expect. It’s a better diss than anything he could have come up with.

I’ve been talking a lot about Eminem’s road to healing on this album, and I don’t want to give a wrong impression – he’s just as foul-mouthed as ever. When he’s not rapping about his own struggles, both with his career and his relationships, he’s making Michael J. Fox jokes and talking about making bulimics puke. Most of his jabs are clever this time (“Stick my dick in a circle, but I’m not fucking around”), but if you think he’s turned over a new leaf, you’re wrong. This is Eminem embracing every part of himself, even the ones that laugh at jokes about Parkinson’s disease.

But there aren’t any murder fantasies here, and there are several songs that show a genuine weakness, often a verboten thing in hip-hop. And he uses his own image to his advantage on “25 to Life,” a raw breakup song that sounds like just another assault on his ex-wife, until the final lines. Maturity is a relative thing, I suppose, and odd as it may be to say, the fact that there aren’t any songs here about killing his own children with cyanide or dismembering Britney Spears is an improvement. He’s all grown up, kind of.

Some have called Recovery a slog, and I can see what they’re talking about. This isn’t nearly as provocative as the button-pushing impishness of Eminem’s first two albums, and after years of poking at society and running away laughing, it’s hard to take Mathers as seriously as he wants here. Some of these songs are also frustratingly average (“W.T.P.,” “So Bad,” “Seduction”), and the album is, as always, too long. Much of it is informed by the 2006 death of his D12 bandmate Proof as well, leading to an even more straight-faced tone.

But to me, Recovery is the album on which Eminem finally takes hold of his prodigious talent and uses it to make himself whole. There’s a real emotional heft to this record, behind the constant swearing and graphic imagery, and for the first time in 10 years, I have no buyer’s remorse. This is a hugely enjoyable record, and hopefully the first step in a new direction for Mathers. For the first time, he sounds willing to take responsibility for his words, his influence, and his life, and to these aging ears, that’s more compelling stuff than even Slim Shady’s most delirious fantasies. For the first time in a long while, I’m looking forward to whatever Mathers does next.

* * * * *

If you’re a singer in a rock band, perhaps the most cliched thing you could do right now is turn to electronica for your solo debut. Thom Yorke blazed the trail with the godawful The Eraser, but more recently, artists like Julian Casablancas of the Strokes have taken the dance-beat plunge, and if you find a band more committed to the “rock thing” than the Strokes, you let me know.

Now Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke has done the same thing with The Boxer, his just-released solo bow. It would be incredibly easy to slate this record for following a trend, except for two things. First, it’s not that much of a stretch for the lead singer of Bloc Party, a band that has had a strong electronic element for its whole career (and amped that element up considerably for 2008’s Intimacy). And second, Okereke has written a strong group of songs here, and made what turns out to be a very good album.

Bloc Party has a huge sound, synths and guitars and big beats colliding on nearly every track. The Boxer, on the other hand, is sparse – opener “Walk Tall” is built on nothing but an insistent drum pattern and a wobbly bass noise. The songs here are danceable, yet melodic, and Okereke’s voice is folded, spindled and mutilated, but always front and center, carrying the song. “Everything You Wanted” could be a Bloc Party track, Okereke digging deep for a wailing, compelling chorus.

I thought I would like songs like that one the most. Two others on The Boxer are more traditional: “Unholy Thoughts” comes closest to indie rock, with a steady bassline and guitar part, and “All The Things I Could Never Say” is a dark ballad, the kind Bloc Party did so well on A Weekend in the City. But those aren’t the tracks I keep returning to. The explosive whirlygig of “On the Lam” draws me in farther, as does the near-ambient “The New Rules.”

My favorite, however, is the first single, “Tenderoni.” The beat is simply unstoppable on this song, and all I need is the descending bass line, Okereke’s voice and the thump-thump-thump. This one gets my blood pumping like no other here. You can call this his Thom Yorke move if you want, but unlike Radiohead’s main man, Okereke has fully integrated his electronic textures with his knack for writing kickass, moving songs. Yes, it’s a trend, but Okereke transcends it. The Boxer is pretty damn great.

* * * * *

Which brings us to the Chemical Brothers, and if anyone’s in dire need of a comeback record, it’s these guys.

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons exploded onto the scene in the late ‘90s with a pair of extraordinary big-beat workouts, Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole. At the time, electronic music was just nudging its nose out of the clubs and onto the radio, and the Chemical Brothers showed what it could be. They invited famous singers into the studio to collaborate, including Noel Gallagher, Bernard Sumner and Hope Sandoval, and for a while, they could do no wrong.

But in the last decade, they’ve settled for passable instead of excellent more often than not. I’m still not even sure how I feel about 2007’s We Are the Night – it sounds like a Chemical Brothers tribute act. It seemed like the Brothers had played their last card, and had shown everything they could do. I don’t even remember 2005’s Push the Button. I have it, I know I’ve heard it, I know it features the aforementioned Kele Okereke in a guest spot, I just don’t recall the thing at all.

So yeah, the Brothers are in desperate need of a reinvention. And they’ve picked a strange way to go about it – Further, their seventh album, is almost entirely instrumental, features no collaborators at all, and is meant to be heard as an unbroken 52-minute suite. That’s right, the Chemical Brothers have decided to recapture the public’s imagination by challenging them with head music, and delivering a full-on assault on the instant-download singles culture. And I kind of love them for that.

I also love Further, the first great Chemical Brothers album since the ‘90s. I love that Simons and Rowlands expect listeners to settle in and absorb this thing as a whole – opening track “Snow” is five minutes of drumless blips, which leads directly into the 12-minute “Escape Velocity,” an ever-building crescendo of sound. The Brothers aren’t cruising at full power until the album’s 11-minute mark, and even then, it’s still building.

Throughout Further, the Chems keep the beats subtle and the sounds watery. The whole shebang doesn’t truly kick in until track four, “Dissolve.” From there, the songs get heavier and more propulsive, until the submerged-sounding closer, “Wonders of the Deep.” (I wish that one had gone on a little longer than its 5:12.) Some parts of the album are weaker (such as the repetitive and annoying “Horse Power”), but as a whole, as an emotional ebb and flow, the thing works.

Best of all, it’s the first Chemical Brothers album in a decade that doesn’t sound like it was made on autopilot. It’s not going to knock the music world on its back like Dig Your Own Hole did, but Further is the finest album these guys have made since those halcyon days. If you have the patience to curl up with this album for its entire running time, it will reward you – it is defiantly an album in an age of quick-hits, and a remarkable one at that.

* * * * *

And now it’s time for the 2010 halftime report. Today is the last day of June, and that means half of the year’s new releases are already out. The last three months have seen some corkers, so this list has changed considerably since the first quarter report in March. If I were forced to publish my top 10 list right now, under threat of death by vuvuzela, here’s what it would look like:

10. Devo, Something for Everybody.
9. The Dead Weather, Sea of Cowards.
8. BT, These Hopeful Machines.
7. Hanson, Shout it Out.
6. Janelle Monae, The Archandroid.
5. Rufus Wainwright, All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu.
4. Beach House, Teen Dream.
3. Yeasayer, Odd Blood.
2. The Lost Dogs, Old Angel.
1. Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me.

Joanna’s still hanging on to that top spot – hard to beat a triple-album of really good stuff. But there’s a new Choir album out this week, and new things from Crowded House, Ben Folds, Arcade Fire, Ray LaMontagne, Eels, the Hoosiers, Sixpence None the Richer, Richard Thompson, Interpol and the Walkmen coming over the next three months, so everything could change. (And yes, the Lost Dogs album really is that good.)

Next week, some notes from this year’s Cornerstone festival, and a review of that Choir album, Burning Like the Midnight Sun. Now, I’m off to watch “The Big Bang.” Come on, Moffat, blow my mind. (Update: He did, sort of. More next week, or the week after.)

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Next week, I am going to the Cornerstone Festival for the third time.

Cornerstone is billed as a Christian rock extravaganza, but for me, it’s the only place to see some of my favorite musicians play. The main stage this year sports Jesus-poppers like TobyMac, Skillet, Phil Joel and David Crowder, which is why I plan to steer clear completely. But on the smaller stages, I’ll get to see the Lost Dogs, Over the Rhine, Paper Route, Eisley, Mike Roe, Terry Taylor, Derri Daugherty, Iona, and a little band called the Choir – a band that, incidentally, hasn’t played live in years.

I’m also rooming with my friend Jeff Elbel, who runs the gallery stage, and plays Wednesday with his band Ping. I expect this will be a hot, dusty, grand old time. I plan to blog my Cornerstone experience, and use those blogs as the basis for the July 7 column. Just a heads-up that your regularly-scheduled music reviews will be taking a week off.

So we’d better get as many as we can in this week and next. I’m ready to go if you are. Bonus points, by the way, for anyone who catches the reference in the column/chapter titles. And now, oh no, it’s Devo…

* * * * *

Devolution

It’s been 20 years since the last Devo album.

I’m going to let that sink in for a moment. 20 years. In that time, Mark Mothersbaugh has established himself as a first-rate film score composer, and Gerald Casale has become a music video director, when he’s not moonlighting as Jihad Jerry. Also in that time, electronic music has exploded into its own widespread subculture, and it all owes a huge debt to the thumping beats and pulsing synthesizers of Devo.

Still, many wrote Devo off as a novelty act. Granted, the video for “Whip It” is funny, but there’s a satirical Swiftian heart beating beneath those plastic red hats. Society, Mothersbaugh and Casale said with all sincerity, has been going backwards – devolving, if you will – and one would be hard-pressed to argue that it hasn’t continued to slide towards the abyss in the 20 years since Smooth Noodle Maps. Those who only heard the hits didn’t quite get how angry a band Devo was, and is.

I’m not sure what external forces combined to convince this quintet to reunite. But the resulting album, Something for Everybody, melts those 20 years right away. It sounds like no time has passed at all. Devo is just as wry, just as dark, just as sarcastic and danceable and goofy and full-on awesome as ever. The four old-time members of Devo (Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald and Bob Casale) are all around 60 – they’ve also recruited 37-year-old drummer Josh Freese – but you’d never guess their ages from the dynamism on display here.

I admit I was worried. I’ve been reading about the album for some time, and it seemed to me like the band was a little too enamored of its marketing concept – they’ve been calling themselves Devo Inc., and they hired focus groups to choose virtually every aspect of the album, from the cover art to the style of jumpsuits the band wears to the order of the tracks themselves. I understood where they were going with it – it’s clearly a comment on the image-conscious, pre-packaged pop universe of the 21st Century – but the concept threatened to overwhelm the music.

That’s why I was glad to see the band actually ignore the advice of its focus group, at least when it came to which songs were included on Something for Everybody. The panel was presented with 16 songs, and asked to choose which 12 should be on the final record. But when it came down to it, the band felt like several of its tunes were under-valued, and included them anyway, in the place of others that the focus group selected. This, to me, is heartening – Something for Everybody isn’t just a commentary, it’s a great album in its own right, and the band felt strongly enough about its own work to scrap an interesting experiment.

Not that the nine songs here selected by the focus group are inferior. Not at all. The record opens with “Fresh,” a song that could have landed on Freedom of Choice without any problem, and continues with “What We Do,” an absolute classic. Over an insistent beat and a throbbing bass line, Mark Mothersbaugh announces that “what we do is what we do, it’s all the same, there’s nothing new.” He’s talking both about his band and about modern society – this is a song with the repeated refrain “Eating and breathing and pumping gas, cheeseburger cheeseburger do it again,” after all. There’s a silliness to this song, but a mechanical, lockstep quality that’s scary at the same time.

This album moves like a bullet, throwing one three-minute wonder after another at you, each one with a hip-shaking beat. You can tell they’ve been working on this thing for a while – “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man)” is built around a “don’t tase me, bro” reference, after all – and much of that studio time has clearly been used to tighten things up to a ridiculous extreme. These songs are all exactly as long as they have to be, and there’s nothing extraneous. “Mind Games” is a condemnation of relationships that toes a sexist line with a mischievous grin, while “Later is Now” is a glorious call-to-arms synth-swirl anthem.

But what of the songs Devo would not let hit the cutting room floor? It’s hard to defend the celeb-mocking “Cameo” as a masterpiece, but the final two tracks, both rejected by the focus group, may be the best on the album. “No Place Like Home” begins with a sparse piano, and spins a striking melody over an ever-expanding synth arrangement. And closer “March On” is pretty much the perfect Devo song, a dark pop number about hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. The melody on this one is superb, dropping the curtain on a sublime note.

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been two decades since I last heard new Devo, but Something for Everybody is like time travel, like ducking into the Wayback Machine for half an hour. I wish the world had moved beyond the need for a band like Devo, but sadly, the same satire works perfectly in 2010 as it did in 1980. Mark Mothersbaugh may believe there’s no place like home to return to, but the members of Devo sound comfortable, confident and at the peak of their powers here. It’s like an old jumpsuit, or flower pot hat – you don’t think they’ll fit, but as it turns out, they’re just right.

* * * * *

Working Man

It’s striking to me just how similar the Gaslight Anthem is to the Hold Steady.

Both bands have adopted Bruce Springsteen’s core sound – working-class stories related over simple chords, with full-throated emotion – and made it louder. Both bands make it very difficult to dislike them, since the rah-rah-rah shout-along choruses and ringing guitar chords work, dammit, and always have. I nod my head and occasionally pump my fist along when either band is playing, even if I don’t particularly like the songs.

Here’s the difference – the Hold Steady is further along in its career, and has already passed the point where repeating a simple sound keeps working. That’s why the last two Hold Steady albums have been departures (and have been less successful). The Gaslight Anthem isn’t there yet – they’ve just put out their third album, American Slang, and it’s another short, sharp burst of Springsteen-style minimum-wage blue-jean rock. Ten songs, none of them particularly different from one another, but all of them reaching for the same spark, the same sense of all being in this together, fighting for our lives against the man.

The Jersey quartet (of course they’re from Jersey) never falters on this record. In Hold Steady terms, this is their Boys and Girls in America, the one on which they perfect the sound they’ve been reaching for. There’s an appealing E Street shuffle to “The Diamond Church Street Choir,” a bowl-you-over energy to “Stay Lucky,” and a near-spiritual heft to subtle closer “We Did It When We Were Young.” It’s difficult for me to ascribe authenticity to something that is trying this hard to seem authentic, but this album is what the Gaslight Anthem has always wanted to sound like.

And to my mind, this is the last album like this they get to make before that sound turns stale. They flirt with their own sell-by date here and there on American Slang, making almost comical over-use of the same chord progressions, and throwing “woah-oh” into as many choruses as they can. It’s clear this band has given its all to this album – just listen to the mini-epic “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” – but it’s also clear that this is it, the pinnacle.

From here, the Gaslight Anthem is either going to release the same album over and over, like a Boss-loving Bad Religion, or they’re going to change up what they do, like the Hold Steady. The first is the safest possible road to stagnation and irrelevance, the second a risky proposition that may work out for them, but may not. (See above re: Hold Steady.) Either way, if you really like what the Gaslight Anthem is doing – and sometimes, when no one’s looking, I really do – then you’d better enjoy American Slang. It may be the last time you hear its like from this band again.

* * * * *

Blues

My aforementioned friend Jeff Elbel thinks the Heartbreakers are the best band in America. It’s hard to argue, honestly – they’re a pretty amazing combo, particularly mainstays Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. Tom Petty gets all the ink, but his backing band is simply awesome.

Petty and the Heartbreakers’ new album, Mojo, seems specifically designed to give the band its due. It’s a long, jammy, bluesy workout that showcases just how down and dirty the Heartbreakers can get. Petty’s been writing effortless pop hits for so long now that if you’ve decided to make this your first Heartbreakers record, you’re probably in for a shock. There’s nothing like “Free Fallin” or “Refugee” here at all. Instead, Petty and his band have taken up the spirit of last year’s dynamic live box set and simply rocked out.

You’ll know something’s different from the first track, “Jefferson Jericho Blues,” a simple tune based on a repeated guitar-harmonica riff. Given its bluesy blueprint, Mojo is surprisingly diverse, although that’s not always in its favor – some of this sounds like Robert Johnson, some like Led Zeppelin, and an awful lot of it like latter-day Eric Clapton. I can absolutely imagine Slowhand taking a crack at “Running Man’s Bible,” an organ-fueled shuffle that shows off Campbell’s lead guitar. But Petty’s road-worn voice works well with this material, and the band definitely makes the most of it.

Some of Mojo is surprising. “I Should Have Known It” is the most kickass rocker Petty’s given us in years, based around an inexorable riff. (It’s clearly his Jimmy Page moment.) “U.S. 41” sounds like it was recorded on a front porch in Alabama, and “Takin’ My Time” is probably the dirtiest blues of the lot, a slow crawl that explodes in a rush of lead guitar and harmonica. Some of it is less successful, of course, like middling ballad “No Reason to Cry” and embarrassing pro-pot reggae slog “Don’t Pull Me Over.”

But the most surprising thing about Mojo is that, given 15 tries, Petty did not turn out one extraordinary song this time out. The album is based on vibe and chops, not melody, and as such, it kind of slides by without sticking. The Heartbreakers are unassailably great, and the best moments of Mojo find them showing off with remarkable power. I just wish they could have kept that live atmosphere, that grubby feel, without sacrificing the great songs.

But even so, if you’re on the fence about the Heartbreakers as a band, you really should hear this. Nothing here will return Tom Petty to the charts, but that’s hardly the point this time out. This is about the band, and they rise to the occasion. Mojo is a workout – 65 minutes and change – but it’s further evidence for Jeff’s theory. Best band in America? At times on this messy, scattered, strange and bluesy record, I believe it.

* * * * *

This last bit is for Bob Slate, who, in his own sarcastic way, has been a big supporter of this column for pretty much its whole run. Slate asked me to put the top 20 of the decade list in one convenient place for him, so here it is. If you were in a coma for the last 10 years, just buy these 20 CDs and you’ll be all caught up with the good stuff.

20. Bruce Cockburn, You’ve Never Seen Everything.
19. Vampire Weekend.
18. Over the Rhine, Ohio.
17. The Choir, O How the Mighty Have Fallen.
16. Aqualung, Memory Man.
15. Silverchair, Young Modern.
14. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love.
13. Mutemath.
12. Daniel Amos, Mr. Buechner’s Dream.
11. Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon.
10. Aimee Mann, The Forgotten Arm.
9. Ben Folds, Rockin’ the Suburbs.
8. Joanna Newsom, Ys.
7. Keane, Under the Iron Sea.
6. Fleet Foxes.
5. Death Cab for Cutie, Plans.
4. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
3. Marillion, Marbles.
2. Rufus Wainwright, Want.
1. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois.

Sorry, Slate, no Steely Dan on the list. Hope you like it anyway.

Next week, more new music. Lots to choose from, too, like Eminem, the Chemical Brothers, Kele, Suzanne Vega, Sarah McLachlan, Foals, Pain of Salvation, Cowboy Junkies, and… yeah. Lots. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Hi there. I’m back. Did you miss me? You look different. Did you change your hair?

What’s that? Oh, right, it’s me. I look different. Yep, for the first time in nearly 10 years, tm3am.com has undergone a complete redesign, courtesy of my genius friend Mike Ferrier. The goal here was to maintain the original look, with the scrolling column in the middle, but get rid of the frames, and clean the whole thing up. You’ll notice there are titles at the tops of the columns now, and there’s a link to my blog on the left.

I’m really happy with it. Infinite thanks to Mike Ferrier for putting this together. I hope he’ll do something similar for the 20th anniversary.

So I’m back from vacation, and excited to get writing again. The next couple of months are going to be awesome. New things by Devo, Cowboy Junkies, Tom Petty, Suzanne Vega, Foals and Sarah McLachlan are already on the shelves, with records by the Chemical Brothers, Eminem, Kele Okereke, Sia, Robert Pollard, Wolf Parade, Big Boi, Crowded House, Sun Kil Moon, Jimmy Gnecco, Marc Cohn, Arcade Fire, Ray Lamontagne, Eels, Sixpence None the Richer, Richard Thompson and Trent Reznor’s new project How to Destroy Angels set to join them.

Oh, and on June 29, we get the new album from a little outfit called The Choir, possibly my favorite band on the planet. And I get to see them play live two days later. Also, I’ve just heard that Sufjan Stevens is working on a new album, at the National’s studio, right now. Life is very, very good. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

* * * * *

I review a wide variety of music on this site, much of it relatively obscure. I’ve heard a lot of stuff that most people don’t have the time or inclination to track down, and I work hard at keeping up with what’s happening in many different corners of the music world. This has led some people to believe that I have a modicum of credibility.

If that’s true, here’s where I put it on the line again, because I absolutely love the new Hanson album.

I get a lot of shit for being a Hanson fan. It usually takes about ten seconds for some smartass to start singing the chorus to “MMMBop,” with a self-satisfied smirk. This response assumes two things. First, that singing the chorus to “MMMBop” will annoy me, which is usually true, but second, that the Hanson brothers still sound like they did when they were teenagers, which is totally wrong. Hanson gets painted with a Nickelodeon-pop brush way too often, mainly by people who haven’t listened to a thing they’ve done since 1997.

I give Taylor, Isaac and Zac Hanson a lot of credit for simply pushing through this noise and making the music they want to make. Hanson is a pop band, no question, but they’re an old-school kind of pop band, one with killer melodies and hooks, fine chops, and with a strong sense of craft behind their exuberant grooves. All three brothers are good musicians, and while they’ve never written a song that will set the world on fire, they’ve certainly turned out more fun, well-written pop songs than anyone had any right to expect.

All of which brings us to Shout It Out, their fifth and best record. If you haven’t heard the dynamite first single, “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Somethin’,” check it out. I’ll wait. Pretty good, right? Now, here’s why Shout It Out is the best thing Hanson has done: on their last two records, 2004’s Underneath and 2007’s The Walk, the Hanson brothers tried for respectability, working hard to sound like adults. They layered on thick production, took on darker themes, and strove to break free of their teen-pop past. They were good records, but they sometimes just tried too hard.

Shout It Out, on the other hand, is full-on fun. This is the record on which the Hansons stopped caring what you think. They wrote 12 swell pop songs, played them with minimal fuss, and called it good. The result is a joyous platter that practically takes your hand and leads you out onto the dance floor. I defy any fan of well-made pop music to listen to the first three tracks and not fall in love. “Waiting For This” has a superb singalong chorus and a neat Isaac Hanson guitar solo. “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Somethin’” is a Motown-style romp of the highest order. And “Kiss Me When You Come Home” is built around an appealing Jackson 5-style piano figure that should wipe away the last of your resistance.

And then comes “Carry You There,” a slow-build with a wonderful verse melody and a gospel-style coda. I checked to see if they hired a choir for the ending, and they didn’t – it’s all the Hanson brothers, layering their voices atop one another. At this point in the album, I just can’t wipe the smile from my face. This is so much fun.

Sure, there are low points. “Give a Little” is generic, and lets the well-arranged horn section do too much of the work. “These Walls” kind of sits there, and while the beat of “And I Waited” is insistent and explosive, the melodies are a bit lacking. And yes, the Hansons will never be great lyricists. These are songs about life and love, and the words are straightforward and radio-ready.

But hell, I don’t care. Not when the songs are as good as “Make It Out Alive,” a piano-based monster I would accept from Ben Folds, or “Use Me Up,” a sterling ballad that finds Taylor Hanson digging deep. The Hansons’ voices have deepened, but they still retain that youthful quality, and they sound just so happy and grateful to be making music. They say as much in “Musical Ride,” a song that doubles as invitation and thank you. It’s so refreshing to hear sentiments like these in pop music.

I’ve been asked a few times over the past week just who Hanson is making this music for. But that’s the beauty of Shout It Out, and of this band in general – they’re making this music because they love it. The Hanson brothers are rich enough that they could stop right now, and coast on “MMMBop” royalties. Instead, they have their own record label, they produce their own stuff, and they make whatever music they want to make.

And on Shout It Out, they’ve made stand-up-and-dance pop music, well-crafted and full of life. Between this and Taylor’s side gig in Tinted Windows, I hope it won’t be long before it will be all kinds of cool to be a Hanson fan. Until then, I really can’t do anything else but tell everyone I know how much I love this album. If you see me driving anytime in the next few weeks, grinning and singing my little heart out and making air drum motions, chances are I’m listening to this.

* * * * *

Now for a couple of pop albums that have a little more credibility and cachet, but are a lot less successful.

It’s been five years since Teenage Fanclub had a new album. You’d think they’d sound a little more excited about it. But on Shadows, their Byrds-y, acoustic-based pop is the same as it’s been for a long time, if not a little more subdued. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but Shadows takes a few listens to really sink in, and even then, much of it is forgettable.

Honestly, at this point, though, I can’t expect any more. The Scottish Teenage Fanclub first hit big over here with “Star Sign” in 1991, aping the grunge sound that was so in vogue. But since then, they’ve revealed themselves as pleasant, atmospheric pop songsmiths. Over time, the electric guitars all but disappeared, leaving breezy acoustics, strings and organs. Shadows is the quietest thing they’ve made. There’s nothing wrong with this album, and when the band hits on a classic pop hook, as they do on “Baby Lee,” they sound like something out of time.

But Shadows sounds oddly rote, like the band is making another album out of some sense of duty. Teenage Fanclub’s three songwriters (Norman Blake, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley) each pen four tunes, and take even turns presenting them, and every one of them is satisfied with simple tunefulness. The album never kicks in, never provides that burst of energy that could have taken it somewhere else. They’re after that mid-period XTC sound, but even when Andy Partridge stripped back his band’s sound to nearly nothing, he never lost the edge that made them one of the finest acts on the planet.

Teenage Fanclub has lost that edge. There are songs here I like, mostly from Gerard Love: “Into the City” is a fine song, with a delightful ba-ba-ba coda augmented by chimes. “Shock and Awe” is perhaps the most energetic thing here, and “Sweet Days Waiting” lives up to its dreamy title. There’s really nothing here I don’t like, in some way, but I can’t remember much of it. It’s simple and pleasant and almost weightless.

I had higher hopes for the third Rooney album, Eureka, but I was similarly disappointed. Rooney’s second effort, 2007’s Calling the World, was a triumph of ‘60s and ‘70s-inspired pop, and with “I Should’ve Been After You,” Robert Schwartzman wrote his first bona fide classic. I hoped the third album would build on that success.

Instead, it’s merely a competent pop record. As with Teenage Fanclub’s album, there’s nothing here I don’t like in one way or another, but there’s nothing that will stick with me once the CD stops spinning. “I Can’t Get Enough” has a Rivers Cuomo vibe to it and a fun, if fairly typical chorus. “Only Friend” has a nice Supertramp sound, all repeated pianos and analog synths, with a quiet breakdown in the middle. “Into the Blue” references Jeff Lynne, even to the point of subtly altering Out of the Blue’s title. It goes on like this, ‘60s and ‘70s influences piling up, but the songs just aren’t there this time. Just listen to “All or Nothing,” a bland piece of simple writing that spends four minutes doing nothing much.

The single best thing on Eureka is also the shortest: “The Hunch” packs a rollicking melody, stomping guitar part, awesome horn arrangement and cheesy-cool organ bits into a dazzling 2:30. There’s only one problem: it’s one of the only songs here not written by Schwartzman. (Drummer Ned Brower and guitarist Taylor Locke co-wrote it.) That’s all the proof I need that we’re listening to a dry spell from Rooney’s main songwriter.

I hope it’s worn off before Rooney’s fourth record, because Schwartzman is better than this. I don’t want to give the impression that Eureka is awful. It’s perfectly capable pop-rock, and there are a couple of good songs here. But overall, it’s flat and uninspiring, and not up to the standard Rooney set last time out. Like Teenage Fanclub’s album, it’s not bad, but it ought to be much better.

* * * * *

Next week, tons of stuff. I’ll definitely review Devo (spoiler: it’s great), and no doubt a few others. It’s good to be back.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I am on vacation. Yes, right now, as you read this. I’ve done pretty much nothing for the last four days, and will do pretty much nothing for the next four. It’s been great so far. Everything I’ve read about these things called “vacations” is absolutely true.

But don’t worry, faithful readers. I haven’t forsaken you. In fact, you get more than the usual dose of my ramblings this week – that is, if you don’t mind spoilers about the final season of Lost. Yes, I’ve finished my exhaustive essay on what I believe to be one of the greatest television shows of my lifetime, and I’ve coalesced my thoughts into a semi-readable whole. I am, of course, putting this essay behind a link, because I know several people who have not yet watched the finale, and I wouldn’t want to spoil what is a pretty incredible surprise.

So, if you’ve already partaken of all the island’s mysteries, click here. If not, please don’t. If you’re still catching up on season six, or if you’ve never watched the show, you should go in clean. I’ve never seen a television show with the same capacity to surprise me, and Lost kept its most beautiful shocker for the final moments. I go into that surprise in detail, so read at your own risk.

In regular column-land today, I’ve got two remarkable records to discuss, and I’ll finally unveil my choice for the #1 album of the 2000s. (Seems like I’ve been writing this list forever…) With all that wordy goodness coming your way, I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to say: I’m taking next week off. Saturday is my birthday, and as is my custom, I’m going to relax with friends. I’ll be back to the column grind on June 16, and I’m sure I’ll be updating the blog (tm3am.blogspot.com) between now and then.

For now, though, onward.

* * * * *

I love layered and ornate production as much as the next guy. (As long as the next guy is Tony Shore.) But to me, something magical happens when you strip all that away, and you’re left with one voice and one instrument. There’s no hiding in that scenario. You either have it or you don’t.

Steve Hogarth has it. For 21 years, he’s been the “new lead singer” of Marillion, and his soaring, emotional voice has brought heart to songs that, in lesser hands, might seem overblown. Hearing Hogarth sing “Afraid of Sunlight” never fails to bring chills, but of all the versions of that song I own (probably about 50), the one that still draws me in the most is a bonus cut on the album’s remaster, a late-night recording of Hogarth alone at the piano, his voice ringing as if in a cavern.

His new album, Natural Selection, is all like that. In 2006, Hogarth started his H Natural tour, just him and a piano, singing songs old and new. Natural Selection collects 15 of those songs, and is all the proof anyone should need that Hogarth has one of the best, most expressive voices on the planet. Now, I don’t mean he has one of those American Idol-style “great” voices. When Hogarth sings, it comes from somewhere deep inside him, an emotional place few singers ever get to.

The bulk of Natural Selection is Marillion songs, given the H Natural treatment. Here is perhaps the most riveting version of “Estonia” I’ve ever heard, and renditions of “Waiting to Happen” and “No One Can” that rescue them from the clean and commercial production of their studio versions. Here is “Easter,” one of Hogarth’s best-known songs, and you can tell – the drunken Dublin audience sings along, loudly. And here is a touching version of “Fantastic Place,” with one of Hogarth’s strongest performances. He holds a single note near the end for so long that the audience applauds.

But the H Natural shows were about more than recasting Marillion tunes. They were about tracing Hogarth’s evolution as a songwriter and performer, so he goes back to his early days with How We Live for opener “Working Town,” and brings out a couple of solo songs from his 1997 album Ice Cream Genius. I’ve never quite liked “Better Dreams” – I find it meandering and endless – but this version drives the lyrics home, and they’re marvelous.

Natural Selection includes three covers as well, the strangest of which is an amazing version of Kraftwerk’s “The Model.” Hogarth makes this frothy song about girls who crave the spotlight into something akin to a plea to an uncaring god. It’s astonishing. He covers his own favorite song, Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat,” and performs a stunning version of his father’s favorite, “Wichita Lineman.” (I’m with Steve’s dad, by the way. I’m coming around to the idea that “Wichita Lineman” may be the best song I’ve ever heard.)

You may think more than an hour of one man and a piano might get boring, but you’d be wrong. Natural Selection brings Hogarth’s voice to the forefront in ways it’s never been, and he takes full advantage, winding his way around the corners of these songs and finding new depths of emotion to pull from. Where Marillion often finds this emotion in vast, broad strokes, here Hogarth takes a fine brush and creates a quiet masterpiece. Buy Natural Selection here.

Although Michael Roe is also best known as the singer in a band, he’s no stranger to quiet solo performances either. For nearly 30 years, Roe has led the Seventy Sevens, one of the most raucous and ass-kicking rock bands on the planet, but his one-man acoustic shows are legendary. He plays guitar like he was born with one in his hands, and his voice can bowl you over one minute and break your heart the next.

Roe’s new album is self-titled, and consists of solo versions of 14 songs he’s been playing for years. Recently, Roe has immersed himself in old gospel and blues songs, both for the Seventy Sevens’ Holy Ghost Building album, and his own We All Gonna Face the Rising Sun. It’s natural, then, that this album should open with five of those old tunes, here stripped down to guitar and voice. Roe whips out his electric on “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” and “You’re Gonna Be Sorry,” but the rest are acoustic, and they carry more weight to me this way, just one man preaching in the wilderness.

Ah, but the rest of Michael Roe is a longtime fan’s delight. Roe runs through songs old and new, including “What Holds On,” “MT,” “The Boat Ashore” and “Smokescreen,” and the effect is like being at one of his solo acoustic concerts. I’ve always wished I could bottle that experience up, and here it is. Roe also covers the late, great Gene Eugene’s “Jimmy,” and closes with a beautiful take on Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will.”

Mike Roe fans are already salivating, just from that list of songs. But if you’ve never heard Roe, this is a fine introduction to a performer who should, in a just world, need none. If I could play guitar like this man can, I might never leave the house, and Roe’s voice has only grown stronger and more resonant with age. My only complaint with Michael Roe is that it doesn’t include “Ache Beautiful,” but even without it, it’s a great collection. While we patiently wait for new original material from the man, this will be more than enough to tide us over. Go here.

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And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. (Well, at least, I hope you have. It’s been a long journey, and I hope you haven’t given up on me.) Here’s my pick for the best album of the 2000s.

#1. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois (2005).

I first heard of Sufjan Stevens at the 2005 Cornerstone festival. His label, Asthmatic Kitty, decided to debut Illinois there. They opened the boxes in the morning, and by late afternoon, the buzz was everywhere. I finally asked someone what everyone was talking about, and he said, “Sufjan Stevens just made the album of the year.”

Well, he was partly right. In fact, Stevens had made the album of the decade.

I was sold on this record almost immediately. I’m a fan of outsize ambitions, and if there’s one thing Stevens has in abundance, it’s ambition. Illinois is the second (and, so far, last) in a planned series of 50 albums, one for each of the United States. It follows 2003’s Michigan, a dark and wonderful record dedicated to Stevens’ home state. But as good as Michigan is, Illinois is better – its reach is wider, its grasp surer. The album is 22 tracks over 74 minutes, and I admit I spent my first trip through waiting for it to collapse. There’s no way, I thought, this record could possibly remain this good all the way through. After realizing that it was, I spent the next three spins just taking it in, and dealing with what I was hearing.

On the surface, Illinois seems ridiculous. Its packaging is cartoony, the title on the front cover is Come On Feel the Illinoise, and the song titles are knowingly pretentious: “To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament,” for example, or “A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze.” The whole thing seems like the product of an overeager tourism bureau, especially as several songs (“Jacksonville,” “Decatur,” “Chicago”) reference specific places in Illinois.

But this is all trapping, the device by which Stevens creates an intensely personal, deeply moving experience. Illinois is huge – most of the songs have strings, horns, choirs, mallet percussion and delightfully florid arrangements – but it’s also intimate, and its most affecting moments are its quieter, simpler ones. Stevens does an amazing job of creating a grand-scale epic about very small things – a boy’s first trip to the big city, a man dying of bone cancer – and then unfolding it into large themes, like the existence of God, and the strength that holds America together.

How he does it is almost a form of magic. I can’t properly describe the joy of hearing the first strains of “Come On Feel the Illinoise,” the true opening salvo of the record – pianos, trumpets , oboes, drums, chimes, all playing in 5/4 as the choirs sing: “Chicago, the new age, but what would Frank Lloyd Wright say?” Similarly, I can’t tell you how much “Chicago” makes me want to spread wings and fly. Amidst a beautiful chimes-and-strings arrangement, Stevens captures perfectly the feeling of being surrounded by tall buildings and possibility. “I was in love with a place, in my mind, in my mind, I made a lot of mistakes…” And yet, he still makes it sound like something he would do again in a heartbeat.

So this album lifts my soul, which is one main criteria, but it also makes me cry. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a more straightforward song of complex despair than “Casimir Pulaski Day.” It’s about watching someone wither away, and marshalling all your faith to change things, to no avail. “Tuesday night at the Bible study, we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens…” The final verse is simply the saddest thing I have heard in years: “All the glory when He took our place, but He took my shoulders and He shook my face, and He takes and He takes and He takes…”

Perhaps Stevens’ finest achievement here, besides the sweep of Illinois as a whole, is “John Wayne Gacy Jr.,” an unflinching look at the state’s most famous serial killer. Over a spare backdrop of guitar and piano, Stevens goes into detail you almost wish he wouldn’t: “He took off all their clothes for them, he put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth…” But it has a purpose – the final verse points back at Stevens himself, and all of us: “And in my best behavior, I am really just like him, look underneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid…”

Stevens brings out the big themes at the end. The menacing, droning “The Seer’s Tower” (I swear, it took me months to get that pun) is Biblical in scope, bringing in Emanuel of Mothers, for whom the mythical tower was built. Still, in the end, Stevens concludes he will “go to the deepest grave, where I go to sleep alone.” But this is followed by the grand finale, the seven-minute “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders,” which casts America’s frontier spirit in grand new lights. Reminiscent of “Illinoise,” the song is built around an 11/8 piano figure and some amazing horn runs, and by its joyous conclusion, Stevens is right back down to earth: “Celebrate the few, celebrate the new, it can only start with you.”

The album concludes with a fluttering instrumental that sounds like rebirth. Its title tells the whole story: “Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run.”

Essentially, there are two reasons Illinois tops this list. First, no other album this decade tried to do so much, and succeeded at it so well. Illinois is a massive undertaking, the work of a certified genius, and its layers are all expertly interwoven. As a musical work, it’s perfect.

But the second reason is more important, to me: Illinois made me think and feel like no other record of the 2000s. I have twisted this album over in my mind more than any other, and it has taken up residence in my heart. I doubt Stevens will ever top it – in fact, the very thought seems to have terrified him. Illinois is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of album, the very best of the decade, and one of the very best I’ve ever heard. If Stevens never makes another, he’ll just have to be happy with that.

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Next week, no new column. But when I come back, we’ve got tons of new music to choose from. Expect something that’ll take you a while to read. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me through my top 20 of the 2000s countdown. If you have a similar list, I’d love to take a look.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So, that was Lost.

I am still processing Sunday night’s extraordinary, moving finale to one of the best television shows of my lifetime, but I can say already that it has stayed with me, made me think, and made me cry. I plan on re-watching the series in the coming months, so I’ll reserve judgment on whether it caps off the six-year journey as well as I think it does. But for now, I can say I liked it a lot, and felt it, on a deep and powerful level.

I’m working on writing up my thoughts on the final episode, and the series as a whole. I hope to have this ready for next week, but with my schedule lately, you never know. Still, I’m going to have to fill it with spoilers, so it’s probably best that I wait a week, and put it behind a separate link, once it’s ready. If you have reactions to the Lost finale in the meantime, I’d love to read them.

Meanwhile, this week, I’ve tackled three new albums that many people (many, many people) have asked me for my thoughts on. Well, wonder no more. Reviews start now.

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The new Black Keys album, Brothers, sports my favorite album cover of the year so far.

It’s white letters on a black background, and they read, “This is an album by the Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.” Flip it over, and you’ll see similar headlines: “These are the names of the songs on this album,” and “These are the guys in the band.” The accompanying poster is even emblazoned with the helpful words “This is a Black Keys poster.” It’s simple, straightforward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get design.

Given that, you may expect that this record heralds a return of the Keys’ down and dirty blues style. You’d be partly right. The Keys have had an interesting few years, first working with Danger Mouse on 2008’s Attack and Release, and then collaborating with various rappers on the Blakroc project. The clean tones and funky beats of these records are a far cry from the days when guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney jammed minimalist riffs in their basement.

And it’s hard to scrub all that studio gloss off. Brothers certainly sees Auerbach and Carney returning to their roots, but there’s a polish to what they do now that wasn’t there before. Danger Mouse stuck around for one track, “Tighten Up,” with its layered guitar and organ lines and trippy beat, but the rest were produced by the band themselves. Given that, I’m surprised how clean much of Brothers sounds.

I’m also surprised by how diverse it is. Songs like “Next Girl” are pure Black Keys, bluesy riffs supporting Auerbach’s earthy wail. But then there’s “Howlin’ for You,” with its Gary Glitter beat and chanted chorus. There’s “Black Mud,” a grimy instrumental that sounds like it was cut live. (That’s a good thing.) “Too Afraid to Love You” is a dark and spectral bass-and-harpsichord lament, and “I’m Not the One” is an absolutely wonderful electric piano minor-key crawl. They even include what I believe is the first reverse-Rickroll: they cover “Never Gonna Give You Up,” but it’s not that “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

With all the different styles on display, you can expect a couple of groaners. “The Only One,” for example, is a two-chord soul dirge, and Auerbach’s fine falsetto is the only thing recommending it. But the good news is that there are 15 short songs on Brothers, and if you don’t like one, another will be along in a minute to do something different. When the Keys are at full power, as on the stunning murder ballad “Ten Cent Pistol,” they’re typically splendid, and by the end of the album, the good far outweighs the mediocre.

Still, I can’t help hoping for a bit more dirt in the gears next time. The Black Keys are definitely expanding their horizons, and so much of Brothers works so well that it would be churlish to suggest otherwise. But I liked ‘em sounding like they’d just crawled up out of the swamp. This album is a return to basics in style and songwriting, but not in attitude, and when these guys crank it up, attitude is often the key ingredient.

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Here’s a quick guide to simulating the Band of Horses experience at Lollapalooza 2009.

First, buy one of their albums. Pick a specific time to start listening to it – say, 7:30 p.m. Then, at exactly that time, start listening to 20 minutes of screeching feedback, just like Lou Reed provided as he ran long on the opposite stage. At about 7:50, hit play on your Band of Horses CD, and relax while taking in their unassuming, pretty guitar rock.

But wait! When your Horses CD is four songs from the end, grab another stereo system and start blasting Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction at the same time, to simulate the moment when the headliners took the opposite stage, and the two bands played over each other. Do that for 20 more minutes. If you really want to be authentic, close all your windows and doors, turn the heat up to 200 degrees, and buy a few sunlamps to add to the discomfort. There! That’s what it was like to listen to Band of Horses at last summer’s festival.

Basically, the Horses got hosed, first by an arrogant and inconsiderate Lou Reed, and then by Perry Farrell, who firmly stuck to the schedule Reed had obliterated. Because of the gracious way they handled it, Ben Bridwell and his group earned my respect. And now, with their charming third album Infinite Arms, they’ve earned it even more.

I’ve always liked Band of Horses. They’re the dictionary definition of unassuming. They play sweet and simple guitar-based rock, steeped in the ‘70s, and they’ve never pretended to do anything else. You won’t find any 10-minute jams or noise experiments or conceptual suites on their records. I like all that stuff, of course, but I can’t help admiring a band like this, who just wants to play nice, melodic music as well as they can. Some have dismissed them as polite, but there are worse things to be. True, delightful little songs like “Blue Beard,” with its lush harmonies, ask for your attention instead of demanding it. But it’s hard not to be swept away by them anyway.

The downside is, there isn’t a lot to say about what they do. Infinite Arms is another 12 pretty, sweet Band of Horses songs. If you’ve ever liked them, you’ll like this. The title track is acoustic, Bridwell’s high and lonesome voice soaring over it, his band harmonizing around him. “Laredo” has a fine melody, and some swirling guitar work. You may be put off by the synthesizers on “Dilly,” but give it a second, and the harmonies will take you somewhere else. Closer “Neighbor” is a wispy campfire song, voices chiming over low organ notes, Bridwell referencing Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers in a plea for togetherness. (Trust me, it works.) The song fires up by the end, and leaves you wanting more.

These tunes are slightly more quiet, slightly more contented, but no less melodic and bright. Nothing here has burrowed its way into my head like “No One’s Gonna Love You,” my favorite BoH song, but the album floats in like a soft breeze, makes you smile for 45 minutes, and floats out again. These are modest ambitions from a modest band, and the result is a simple little album that’s disarmingly easy to like. Infinite Arms may get lost among the sturm und drang of this year’s hectic release schedule, but that would be a shame. It’s a fine little record from a fine little band.

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I’ve never been James Murphy’s biggest fan.

Granted, I was a late boarder on the LCD Soundsystem train. I missed all the singles and the self-titled debut, finally catching up with Sound of Silver in 2007. Murphy’s one-man dance-pop project has made me laugh (“Losing My Edge,” “Sound of Silver”), and made me nearly nod off (“All My Friends,” “On Repeat”). Inconsistency appears to be the order of the day, despite some nice beats and a winning ironic edge to many of Murphy’s lyrics. I just can’t fully commit to Murphy’s thing.

I nearly didn’t even buy This is Happening, his third (and reportedly last) LCD Soundsystem record. The reason was “Drunk Girls,” the absolutely vomit-inducing first single. It sounds very much like something the intoxicated denizens of my freshman dorm would sing along with at three in the morning, a slab of boneheaded obnoxiousness so toxic it ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning. It’s fair to say that I hate this song, and once I put this review to bed, I’ll likely never play it again.

The sad irony, though, is that “Drunk Girls” aside, This is Happening is Murphy’s best record. The remainder of the 65-minute running time is given over to epics, running six to nine minutes in length, almost all sprawling dance tracks. Murphy lets his David Bowie influence come to the fore here, particularly taking from the Brian Eno years, but he brings out some previously-hidden David Byrne worship as well. The combination works, especially on the marvelous closer “Home.”

But the first track is my favorite. “Dance Yrself Clean” starts out whispering its intentions in your ear, Murphy lightly singing over nearly inaudible drums and synth notes. The mayhem doesn’t really start until the three-minute mark, when the criss-crossing keyboard barrages begin, and though it is samey-sounding from there until its ending five minutes later, it’s dark and captivating. “One Touch” continues in the same vein, spiraling synths toppling over an insistent beat while a children’s chorus (really) shouts out the title phrase.

“You Wanted a Hit” is another standout, an eight-minute ‘80s-pop-inflected diatribe against… well, I imagine, the people who don’t want Murphy to make eight-minute diatribes. The venom in this song is somewhat undercut by “Drunk Girls,” which is most definitely the hit, but the slowly-unfolding menace and melody here both work. I’m also a big fan of “Pow Pow,” a Prince-tastic dancehall stomp with Murphy’s patented detached rambling on top of it. This one’s truly funny. (Unlike “Drunk Girls.” All right, I’m done.)

Long story short, if Murphy truly is bringing LCD Soundsystem to a halt, he’s going out with his best foot forward. I still can’t say he’s made music I love, but on This is Happening, he finds a groove and makes it work for him. After this, I may even check out whatever Murphy does next.

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Next week, I will reveal my pick for the best album of the 2000s. Longtime readers probably have figured it out by now, but I’m going to drag out the non-suspense anyway so I can list a few honorable mentions. These are records that missed the list by fractions of a degree, but are still among the very best the decade had to offer. I’m probably still missing a few – it was a good decade – but here are the ones I nearly slotted into the list. In chronological order:

The Cure, Bloodflowers (2000). The graceful end to the trilogy begun with Pornography and Disintegration. Bloodflowers is all about resignation, about accepting the finality of death and the uselessness of life. Cheery stuff all around, but I always like Robert Smith more when he goes off his meds and gives us something dark, something that echoes around the skull for a while. Most of Bloodflowers accomplishes this with ease, and even if it’s not as good as the other two chapters, it’s still wonderful.

Ani Difranco, Revelling/Reckoning (2001). Two hours of one of our most challenging and remarkable songwriters at the top of her game. This was recorded at the height of Difranco’s immersion in jazz chords and horn charts, and the first disc is a rollicking ride. The second, though, contains the album’s heart, a slow and glorious suite of emotional songs full of surprising beauty. Difranco made a lot of records over the last 10 years, but this is my hands-down favorite.

Beck, Sea Change (2002). I think Beck is best when he’s emulating Nick Drake instead of Prince. Sea Change is a grand and gorgeous breakup album, all gauzy acoustics and sad, sweet melodies. It was the first time Beck truly made an emotional statement, and as much as I like when his pop culture blender is on puree, I wish he’d make another one.

Pain of Salvation, BE (2004). Here’s one that started out as a blip on my radar, but slowly grew into one of the most fascinating albums I’ve ever heard. Sweden’s Pain of Salvation tackled nothing short of the nature of God and man on this piece, and while it may seem daunting, particularly with all the song titles in a made-up pseudo-Latin language, it’s a remarkably easy and affecting listen. “Vocari Dei,” in particular, stands out as a jaw-dropper, but the whole album will move you while it makes you think.

The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (2007). The Shins’ best record is pure pop goodness, with melodies Brian Wilson could be proud of, and an appealingly bright sound that mixes in some newfound colors. I hope James Mercer writes another record soon, because the world is a colder place without this splendid band.

The Feeling, Join With Us (2008). These winsome Brits are too often written off as soft-rock, and nothing could be further from the truth. They combine elements of 50 years of British pop in a sound so pristine, so joyous, so bursting with life that it brings a smile to my face whenever I play it. I honestly haven’t heard a pop album this sonically dense and multi-colored since Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk, back in 1994. This album is a forgotten gem.

Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown (2009). I know, you think I’m kidding. But this phenomenal rock opera from the former Dookie boys is truly amazing stuff. It’s a massive and complex work, light years beyond what you’d expect even from American Idiot, its closest ancestor. There have been a lot of rock operas in recent years, but I never thought Green Day would write one this cohesive, this well-planned, and this flat-out good.

Quiet Company, Everyone You Love Will be Happy Soon (2009). And finally, the little band from Texas that introduced songwriter Taylor Muse to the world. This album is his opus, an hour-long examination of faith, love and family, all wrapped up in some of the most memorable and singable melodies you’ll hear anywhere. The 2000s gave us Quiet Company, but the 2010s will make them famous, mark my words. Go here.

Of course, I need to add Brian Wilson’s SMiLE to the list, even though I disqualified it. It’s simply one of the best pieces of pop music I’ve ever heard, full stop.

Next week, the big number one, plus some new music. Don’t know what yet, but I will definitely talk about some new music. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I live about an hour away from the starting point of Route 66.

I can pick up the famous Mother Road a lot closer, but if I want to start at the beginning, I only need to drive into Chicago, something I do all the time. Then, if I so choose, I can follow the road west like so many migrants during the Dust Bowl era, traveling all the way to California. The western end point is a little farther south these days – the Santa Monica pier – and the route is a series of different highways now, since Route 66 was discontinued in 1985. But the journey itself is remarkably similar.

Route 66 is almost a cliché at this point, a symbol of old America and a metaphor for any pilgrimage you want to illustrate. But there’s still gold in them there hills, and decades of mining hasn’t diminished the simple power of the image. I’ve never seen a band commit to it quite like the Lost Dogs did in 2008: they decided to make the trip themselves, climbing into an old van in Chicago and driving it out to California. Along the way, they played shows, visited landmarks, met people, and wrote songs.

It was certainly a move loaded with symbolism. The Dogs are all middle-aged men now, and their journey hasn’t been what any one of them would have expected. Who could have known that this good-time Americana side project would turn into such a long-running partnership? Who could have foreseen the death of one of their own, the late great Gene Eugene, 10 years ago? Who could have guessed the Dogs would continue, but that it would be a decade before they completed their long, slow climb back?

Terry Taylor, Derri Daugherty and Mike Roe have been through a lot together. They’ve all still got their own projects – Daugherty’s, the Choir, has a new album set for next month, in fact – but they’re devoted to each other, and the Lost Dogs. After Eugene’s death in 2000, they persevered, and they’ve made good-to-great albums since then. They added Choir drummer Steve Hindalong four years ago for the best of the bunch, The Lost Cabin and the Mystery Trees. It was the start of a rebirth, the best thing they’d done since they became a three-legged dog. And now, that rebirth is complete.

The Dogs’ journey across Route 66 has not only strengthened their bond, it has gifted them with what might be the best album they’ve ever made. It’s called Old Angel, and it’s the longest, most varied, most confident, and most complete Lost Dogs album in 10 years. It’s a record about setting out to find God and America, and ending up finding yourself. It is funny without being goofy, and at times heart-stoppingly beautiful. It is full of prayers and travelogues and glorious songs of wonder and joy.

It is an earthy album, built largely on acoustic guitars, but it is also a remarkably full, lush work. Opener “Israelites and Okies,” a hymn wishing pilgrims safe travels, is a pulsing, mellow introduction, Taylor’s voice joining with Daugherty’s and Roe’s in lovely harmony. It’s a whispered beckon to join them on their travels, and it sounds both like a dirt road and a spectral, golden path. The tone remains the same throughout – these are mostly simple, folksy songs, but the production is rich and bountiful. There are banjos and accordions and fiddles and pedal steel guitars and mandolins and all manner of percussion from Hindalong’s bag of tricks, and every element works.

Old Angel is also the most democratic Lost Dogs album since Eugene’s death. Half of the new songs are Taylor’s, the rest co-written by the Dogs in numerous combinations. The band also puts its own spin on a song from Taylor’s old band, Daniel Amos – “The Glory Road” stands as something of a mission statement, both a look back and a starting line. This version is better and brighter, but retains all of the original’s quirkiness.

But it’s the new songs that shine. Amidst the acoustic prayers, like the pretty “Traveling Mercies,” and the thunderous rockers like “Wicked Guns” (all about Wild Bill Hickock, if you can imagine), are songs unlike any the Lost Dogs have ever done. “America’s Main Street” is a blues-on-fire spoken word piece, Taylor nearly cracking himself up by the end. “Pearl Moon” is one of the most affecting, a dark piece about the inhabitants of a Depression-era slum, and its ghostly melodies will stay with you. “The World is Against Us” is a despairing a cappella piece, the Dogs’ voices entwining on the final verse to amazing effect.

This album is wonderful all the way through, but near the end, it truly takes flight. “Desert Flowers” was written after a visit to Red Sands Mission School, on an Arizona Navajo reservation, and it’s unforgettable. “In defiance of scorching suns and prophets of doom, desert flowers still bloom,” Daugherty sings, before the band launches into a refrain sung in Navajo, and complete with Native American drumming. After that, you need a break, and “Dead End Diner” obliges – the funniest and best of the “rest stop songs” here, this one allows bass god Tim Chandler a chance to do his molten lava thing under a bed of ringing guitars. As the backing vocalists note that “Obama’s on the radio,” Taylor sings to his waitress, “Keep the change, honey.”

But it is “Carry Me” where the album reveals its heart. A simple acoustic ballad, this song takes on grand proportions in Mike Roe’s hands – he sings it like an angel, feeling every note. “Carry me, I’m too proud to crawl, carry me, I’m too tired to run, carry me over Mojave, under the Navajo sun…” It is an acknowledgement that we cannot make the journey alone. We need each other, and we need something greater.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Old Angel, but this album has left me in awe. There have been times over the last 10 years when I’ve stuck with the Lost Dogs simply because I love these guys, but with this record, they’ve completed their long, strange trip home. It may be their best ever. It may even be one of the best of the year. It is, most certainly, a wonderful set of songs by a band that’s done finding its way, and is ready for whatever’s next. I’ve loved every Lost Dogs album, but I don’t think I’ve ever loved one as much as this.

Try it here. But it here. Now, if the Choir album is this good, I’ll be a happy music fan.

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I have never been able to properly describe Hammock.

I think they’re the greatest shoegazer band in the world, but that means nothing to anyone not familiar with the term. And it doesn’t quite capture them, either, since shoegaze music is often characterized by a huge wall of distorted sound (see My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain), and you’ll never hear that from Hammock. What they do is more like what former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie does, but bigger and thicker and more melodic. Their sound is guitar-based, but the guitars sound like wisps of clouds, and the whole thing has an unearthly quality beyond words.

Yeah, it drives me somewhat mad that I can’t adequately tell you what Hammock sounds like. But then I put on one of their records, and I’m overcome, stunned speechless by the infinite beauty of the music. And that’s all it will take for you, too. You don’t need me on this one. So all I’m going to do is talk a little about how great the new Hammock album, Chasing After Shadows… Living With the Ghosts is, and suggest you purchase it. If you want to save some time, seriously, just scroll down to the link at the end of this review.

The basics: Hammock is Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson. Byrd plays impossibly gorgeous guitar that rarely sounds like a guitar. Thompson plays electronics that rarely sound like electronics. This new album is 72 minutes of the greatest ambient instrumental wonderamas they’ve ever made. Some of these songs have drums (by the great Steve Hindalong, among others), some of them don’t. Many of them are augmented with delicately arranged strings. (“The Whole Catastrophe” makes stunning use of them.) Vocals, when there are vocals, are usually wordless, and sometimes sung by Byrd’s angel-voiced wife Christine Glass Byrd.

Much of this album was mixed by Tim Powles of the Church. The songs that weren’t were mixed by Derri Daugherty of the Choir. If you know these names, you know they’re marks of quality. These 12 songs all have a cascading, washing-over-you feeling to them, especially “Andalusia” and the amazing nine-minute “You Lost the Starlight in Your Eyes,” the one song with lyrics. If you need more incentive to buy, the limited edition of Chasing After Ghosts comes with a hardbound photo book by Thomas Petillo, and a four-song EP of even more otherworldly goodness.

Blah blah blah. Hammock doesn’t need me to describe them for you either. This is music that’s meant to be experienced, loudly in a darkened room. It is transporting in the best sense of the word. I can do nothing for this record that one listen through couldn’t do a million times better. So what are you waiting for? Go here.

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Sticking with the mellow theme, then:

Of all the bands championed by the indie press, I don’t think I’ve heard a more depressingly average one than the National. I’d love to be on board with this band, since on paper, they sound like one I would like. A Brooklyn quintet based around two pairs of brothers and a singer with a distinctive baritone, the National writes slow songs built on atmosphere. True, they used to rock a bit more, but with 2007’s The Boxer, they settled into a hushed, reserved groove. Everyone and their brothers went nuts over The Boxer, but I thought it nudged perilously close to boring more often than not.

The National’s new album is called High Violet, and while it’s fuller and richer, it’s not any louder, or any more memorable. I would like to like this thing, but I can’t find very much to hang my ear on. The songs are just as skeletal as those on The Boxer, only here they’re covered in strings and percussion and various effects. I like the ones with a pulse, like “Afraid of Everyone” and “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” but I can’t remember them, and ditties like “Lemonworld” pass by without leaving a mark. I’ve heard High Violet three times now, and I couldn’t hum most of the songs if I had to.

Perhaps that’s not the point. Maybe they’re aiming for the same space as Hammock, and the mood is what’s important here. But if so, I don’t think they’ve done that very well either. The album is full to bursting with sound, but it all collapses into sonic mud. Matt Berninger’s voice is arresting when it sits atop stark backdrops, but here, it just fills in the bass register a little more without standing out. Dynamically speaking, this is flat and boring – it’s thick and massive, but it just lies there, not moving.

Good songs can survive overeager production, but these are not very good songs. My favorite is “England,” and even that is repetitive and melodically nonexistent. In the end, these songs aren’t atmospheric enough to be the out-of-body experience they want, and they’re not well-written enough to demand my attention. They just spill out of the speakers and collapse in front of you. I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but for the life of me, I just don’t understand the acclaim this band gets. There’s just nothing here I respond to.

Faring much better is Mark Eitzel, the sad-sack leader of American Music Club. It’s been five years since Eitzel graced us with a solo album, and his last one was the bizarre, half-instrumental Candy Ass. While American Music Club has essentially plied the same trade for its entire career, Eitzel’s solo output has been widely varied, jumping from jazz-pop to electronica to stark folk to covers of his own songs with traditional Greek musicians.

His new one, Klamath, is no exception. This one seems to combine many of Eitzel’s fascinations – it’s dark and dreary, based around acoustic guitars and thumping bass, but sprinkled with electronic atmospheres, and propelled by subtle drum machines. The songs are mostly laments, delightfully depressing slices of melancholy, and the tempo rarely rises above a watery calm. Eitzel’s voice, as always, can make anything feel like a soundtrack to slitting your wrists, and it’s well-suited to this material.

And these are strong songs, the strongest to appear on an Eitzel album since The Invisible Man, back in 2001. “The Blood on My Hands” will stay with you, its pitch-dark gracefulness accented by bell-like piano notes. “There’s Someone Waiting” is built on an electronic vibraphone pattern and a monotone verse, but the harmonies on the chorus are splendid. The strummed “What Do You Got for Me” is the album’s high point, its relatively upbeat melody positively drowned in keyboard drones and crashing piano runs. (Trust me, it works.)

Klamath is, in fact, Eitzel’s strongest solo effort in almost a decade. That’s why it’s such a shame that no U.S. label would release it. Eitzel’s been forced to press this record up himself, and package it in a minimalist sleeve. It won’t be sold in stores, or on iTunes, he says, but only at his website. I nearly missed this album – it came out in late 2009 – and I bet I’m not alone. The fact that only a handful of very attentive people will get to hear this album is a crying shame, because it’s further proof that there’s only one Mark Eitzel, and he’s pretty great.

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We’re careening full speed toward the end of my list of the top 20 records of the 2000s. In fact, after I reveal #2, there’s no way most of you won’t guess the top pick. But hell, I’m committed. Here we go.

#2. Rufus Wainwright, Want (2003/2004).

I’ve been having an argument with a colleague about Rufus Wainwright lately. Specifically, about Wainwright’s new album All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu, on which he pays tribute to his departed mother by singing some very sad songs alone at a piano. I think it’s beautiful stuff, while my friend says it barely even meets the definition of art. It’s a risky record, and a divisive one, and while I love it, I can see why others are turned off.

I can’t imagine having the same discussion about Want, Wainwright’s finest hour. (Well, closer to two hours, really.) Want is a double album released in halves over two years, but it’s meant to be heard together (and was packaged that way in a reissue). This is everything you need to know about the finest songwriter to emerge in the last 15 years, an almost overwhelming tour de force that plays like a variety show. On this album, Wainwright can do no wrong, and on these two discs, you will find the best pop songs (and songs of many other stripes) of the decade.

Want is sort of like Rufus Wainwright’s White Album, on which he tries everything and anything. Its sprawl is a big part of its charm – Wainwright’s persona has always been one of excess, of a showman trying hard not to let his mask slip. Ironically, he has always used this masquerade game to write intensely personal songs, and then dress them up in lavish arrangements and take them out to dance. Here, he sings about his own narcissism, his addictive personality, and his aching desire to connect with people, but he does so with beautiful, singable explosions of multicolor sound.

Though it is one complete album, Wainwright put the more accessible material on disc one, and the more esoteric on disc two. That makes Want One the better of them, for me, since it’s a non-stop carnival ride of wondrous melodies. Just “I Don’t Know What it Is,” by itself, would sell me on this record, but we also have the ever-building drama of “Go or Go Ahead,” the infinite sadness of “Pretty Things,” the kitschy fun of “Vibrate,” and the inescapable joy of “Beautiful Child.” Even the often-overlooked ones are masterpieces – Paul McCartney could not have written a more lovely song of friendship than “Natasha,” for instance.

Above all this is Wainwright’s voice, once a thin buzz but now a golden instrument. He puts those unique pipes through their paces here, and the results are wonderful. The melodies are even more complex on Want Two, but given time, they resonate with greater depth. Who else would start the second disc with a six-minute spectral lament sung entirely in Latin? Who else would give us the prim and proper “The Art Teacher” next to the unrepentantly silly “Hometown Waltz,” and who else could deliver a one-two punch of glorious sadness like “Memphis Skyline” and “Waiting for a Dream”? And then there is the magnificently filthy “Gay Messiah,” Wainwright’s most confident step into camp territory.

Everything here is given exactly the right amount of too much by Wainwright and producer Marius de Vries. Horns blare, strings soothe, pianos pound, choirs sing (most strikingly on “14th Street”), and oceans of backing vocals take the songs to new heights. But when needed, everything drops away – “Pretty Things” is an oasis of calm in the middle of the mayhem, and the quieter moments on Want Two are the album’s most heartbreaking. It is one of the most perfectly-made records I own, juggling huge waves of sound and never losing the emotional soul of the songs.

The picture that emerges is of a brilliant songwriter finding his voice. There is nothing here that doesn’t work – even the nine-minute orchestral-prog closer “Old Whore’s Diet,” a duet with Antony Hegarty, ends up as sublime fun. I mentioned earlier that this is Wainwright’s White Album, and I know I’ve placed it on this list ahead of a number of Sgt. Peppers. But I feel very strongly about Want. No other artist’s work fills me with such absolute joy. This is delirious, ambitious, utterly fantastic (in every sense of the word) music, and it makes my heart sing. No other record I heard last decade made me quite as happy to be alive as this one.

But it’s not number one. Next week, some honorable mentions, and on June 2, my choice for the best album of the 2000s.

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Next week, more and more again, with the Black Keys, Band of Horses, LCD Soundsystem, Stone Temple Pilots, Michael Roe, and anything else that comes my way. Also, I will probably have something to say about the end of Lost. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The standard compact disc can hold about 80 minutes of music.

In the days of vinyl (by which I mean the days when no other technology was available), the average album was between 40 and 45 minutes long. Now, the average is closer to an hour, and many artists feel like they aren’t serving the audience if they don’t fill up the CD. Some songwriters can sustain quality over 75 minutes, but most can’t.

And yet, the format dictates how much material we expect. Look at Blu-Ray discs. We can fit so much more extra material on a Blu-Ray, so if producers don’t – if they just don’t have 10 new documentaries to slot alongside their movie – the audience feels cheated. I sometimes feel the same way about albums, but I’m trying to let that go. I truly support an artist’s right to say just how long, or how short, their record should be.

Still, I think 30 minutes is about the minimum I’d expect from a full-length album. If you’re going to charge me 10 or 12 bucks, you should give me half an hour’s enjoyment. When good bands restrict themselves to 30 minutes, I usually find myself aching for more. Case in point: every Starflyer 59 album for the last decade has clocked in at around half an hour, and every one has left me wishing Jason Martin had just dug in and written a few more awesome songs. (Particularly since he regularly releases EPs, each one around 15 or 20 minutes long.)

But in some cases, like the three records I have on tap this week, 30 minutes is just fine. I found all three of these just long enough – I wasn’t crying for more at the end, and I never got bored as they were unspooling. Sometimes, a short record is exactly the right length.

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Keane, at least, has the courtesy to call their 30-minute marvel, Night Train, an EP, and price it accordingly. I’m grateful, but as this is no less satisfying than their longer works, I would have bought it no matter what they were asking.

Night Train was written and recorded while the band was on tour for 2008’s wonderful Perfect Symmetry. In some ways, it’s the Zooropa to that record’s Achtung Baby, a hodgepodge of experiments that hangs together remarkably well, and points to half a dozen new directions. Symmetry found the band hopping into the Delorean, hitting 88 miles per hour and winding up in the ‘80s, and it wasn’t received nearly as well as the stately piano-pop of their first two albums. But rather than retreat, Keane has boldly gone even weirder, even further from the sound that made them famous.

What I like best about this effort is its fearlessness. The band has torn open its signature sound, but retained its soul – none of this album sounds like Keane, and yet, it all sounds like Keane, in a way. They’re a quartet now – guitarist Jesse Quin is officially part of the band – and you’d think that a more traditional lineup would lead them down more typical paths. If that’s what you’re expecting, Night Train is gonna knock you out.

Take the first single, “Stop For a Minute.” It’s got a trippy mid-tempo beat, a pounding piano and a soaring chorus, but it’s also a collaboration with Somalian rapper-singer K’Naan, who throws down rhymes over the bridge and takes half the lead vocals on the verses. And it works. “Back in Time” sounds like Joy Electric in places, its swooping synthesizers surrounding Tom Chaplin’s high, clear voice. (Chaplin’s one of the best singers working today, and he sounds typically excellent here.) And “Clear Skies” is all acoustic guitars, handclaps and vibraphones, a barreling ride through a dark tunnel. “Clear skies gonna fall on you…”

But wait, they’re not done. “Your Love” is the type of song that could have found its way onto 120 Minutes in 1985, and marks the singing debut of keyboard genius Tim Rice-Oxley. (He sounds like Chaplin, but not as strong.) “Looking Back” brings K’Naan back into the mix, but also incorporates a full horn section, for a brassy stomp that sounds nothing like anything else in the band’s catalog. (Think the theme from Rocky, only great.)

The only experiment that doesn’t work is a throbbing cover of Japanese electro-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1983 song “Ishin Denshin (You’ve Got to Help Yourself),” featuring vocals from Baile Funk star Tigarah. It’s fine, just a little too Live Aid in its execution. But with so many strange detours on display, it’s kind of amazing that this is the only one that leads nowhere.

Night Train ends with longtime live favorite “My Shadow,” and I’m glad they waited until Quin joined the band to record it – it benefits greatly from the crashing guitars in its second half. Perhaps the most Keane-like song here, “My Shadow” begins delicately, but builds into an anthem. “We won’t be leaving by the same road that we came by,” Chaplin sings, his voice yearning for connection atop his band’s beautiful noise. I’ve heard this song live a couple of times, and this studio rendition absolutely does it justice.

I’ve said this before, but it still stands: one day Keane will write a song I don’t like. That day has yet to arrive. With Night Train, they continue a hot streak, and even better, they sound liberated, like they’re free to try anything. If you thought Keane was ridiculous before, nothing here will change your mind. But if you love the sound of great musicians breaking new ground for themselves, and having a hell of a great time doing it, check this out.

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I’ll cop to initially being disappointed in Richard Julian’s new record, Girls Need Attention.

Julian’s been a favorite of mine for more than 10 years. He’s snarky and sharp-witted, no doubt, but he’s consistently able to give his listeners a look past the thorny exterior to the warm heart beneath. Julian has a great way with a melody, and an even better way with a phrase. Unfortunately, he’s just one of those casualties of the music biz – a genuinely talented guy who can’t catch a break, and has never found the audience he richly deserves. (He doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. His name redirects to an entry on animated series Chris Colorado.)

And so, after two solid records on EMI, Julian’s signed with folk/bluegrass label Compass Records for his sixth effort. Girls Need Attention is his simplest and sparsest album, comprising nine originals and a cover, and running about 35 minutes. Couple that with the fact that these new songs are his most serious – you won’t hear much of the smirking humor or clever storytelling that has so far defined him – and you can probably see how this record might not leave its mark at first.

But stay with it, and Girls reveals hidden pleasures. For one thing, it is perhaps Julian’s most diverse work – it zips through stark acoustic folk, muddy blues, jangly pop and stomping rock, just in the first four songs. Those four also feature Wilco guitarist Nels Cline lending a hand, and Julian puts him through his paces, particularly on the dark and dirty “Words.” “Lost in Your Light” is simple enough that Julian probably wrote it in 20 minutes, but it’s sweet and sunny, and the title track is the only song here that will make you laugh. (The chorus is “Get your drunk ass up, don’t you know girls need attention.”)

Throughout this record, Julian only uses the instruments he needs. Only four of these 10 songs have drums, and there are moments here where the music all but disappears. “Georgie” definitely sounds like a song Compass Records would release: it’s all banjo, tuba and clarinets, and very traditional-sounding pop-jazz. Julian mines several American musical forms for this album – check out the ukulele dance-along “Sweet Little Sway” – but he does them all well. And the sparse cover of Randy Newman’s “Wedding in Cherokee County” sends this album away with a smirk.

I do find myself missing Julian’s trademark humor, and his often more robust production. But as an earthy side trip, Girls Need Attention works well. This isn’t the album to find Julian a wider audience, but it sounds like he had fun making it, and it feels like he’s in a good place. That’s really all I can hope for my favorite artists – that they find a corner of the world, live in it, love it, and let me in every once in a while. Hear Julian at his site.

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Both the Keane and Julian records are sweet little affairs. But if you want something that will barge in, smack you with a barstool, flip over tables, set the place on fire and saunter out 35 minutes later, you can’t go wrong with Sea of Cowards, the second album by the Dead Weather.

Now, I’m not your typical Jack White fan. I like the White Stripes well enough, I dig the Raconteurs, and White’s work as a producer makes me smile. But I absolutely love the Dead Weather, White’s third and best band. It’s a supergroup of sorts, featuring White on drums, his Raconteurs bandmate Jack Lawrence on bass, Queens of the Stone Age madman Dean Feritia on guitar and organ, and the Kills’ Alison Mosshart on vocals. But rather than try for a mix of their sounds, the Dead Weather has gone for a scummy, dirty blues vibe, and on Sea of Cowards, they’ve perfected it.

Everything on this record sounds like shit, in the best way. Everything is louder than everything else, the tones all bleed into one another, and the whole thing feels like it was recorded in a garage. (Don’t get me wrong – it’s meticulously crafted to sound that way.) While the first Dead Weather album indulged in slower blues every once in a while, Sea of Cowards rocks like Ben Grimm all the way through. Songs segue into one another, and the whole thing feels like a live show, played in the corner of a dingy basement while drunken bikers beat the crap out of each other with pool cues.

Most of these songs are built around a single riff, bludgeoned over and over with kickass precision. Mosshart is superb here, screeching like a woman possessed on “Hustle and Cuss” and exploding all over “I’m Mad.” Fertita makes more use of his organ here – some songs sound like they don’t have guitars at all, in fact. On every track, White proves he’s a better drummer than his fellow Stripe, Meg White. This record, even more than the first, is about the feeling. It would be hard for me to call “I Can’t Hear You” a good song, for instance, but it rocks like you wouldn’t believe, and in context (between fiery singles “Die By the Drop” and “Gasoline”), it smokes.

And in this case, 35 minutes is exactly right. Once the sinister tones of “Old Mary” fade, you’ll be exhausted and sweaty and ready to collapse. This thing rocks that hard. Much as I like Jack White’s other endeavors, this is the one I hope he sticks with for as long as he can. Sea of Cowards is sleazy, scuzzy fun, and it’ll leave you needing a shower, but fully entertained.

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Here’s a strange irony for you. I’m about to cap off a column about short records with an essay on a long one. In fact, if you play all three of the albums above back to back, you’ll still come up shorter than my choice for the third-best album of the 2000s:

#3. Marillion, Marbles (2004).

The best thing about Marbles is that it shouldn’t exist.

Marillion has been around since 1981. They had their day in the sun in the late ‘80s (at least in Britain), with a singer named Fish and a song named “Kayleigh.” Fish left, the band replaced him, their popularity waned in the ‘90s, and they got dropped from their label. And for most bands, that’s where the story would have ended. But those looking for Marillion on an episode of Where Are They Now will be sorely disappointed.

Marillion spent the years following their exit from EMI getting better and better, building a fanbase online, and developing a model for their continued survival. Marbles was the album that proved it could work. In a remarkable leap of faith, more than 13,000 fans (including yours truly) ponied up about 50 bucks each to finance the recording, release and promotion of Marbles, a year or so before we actually heard a note of it. The fans came through for the band, and the band did the same for the fans, taking their time to craft a masterpiece, free of record company interference, and then getting it directly into the hands of the people who made it happen.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Lots of bands do it this way now. But this was 2003, and an online-only campaign of this magnitude was still a rarity. I can tell you, as a participant, that I felt a part of Marbles’ creation in a way I’ve never really experienced before. The reward was magnificent, however: Marbles is the sound of a brilliant band given total artistic freedom, and coming up with the record of their lives. It is everything I love about Marillion, a band that plays equally to my head and my heart, and every note and every line of this thing is etched onto my life.

At first glance, this record is daunting. It is three epics and two suites, connected by the four-movement title track. Its opening song is more than 13 minutes long. This thing is a commitment, but it doesn’t feel like one as it’s playing. Through sheer depth of sound and songwriting, it carries you from one end to the other, and when it’s over, you’ll feel like you’ve been somewhere and back again. This is music to get lost in.

Marbles is an album about overcoming. Opener “The Invisible Man” begins with a sinister techno pulse, but soon is rushing like a river all around singer Steve Hogarth, who makes you feel the title character’s anguish as his life evaporates in front of him. Hogarth, who jokingly likes to refer to himself as the band’s “new lead singer since 1989,” has one of the most expressive and expansive voices in music today. He has a flawless falsetto, and can do soaring like few others, but he’s equally good at whispering those emotions, and making you feel them even more.

Throughout Marbles, Hogarth’s lyrics pit darkness against light. “Genie” and “The Damage” are about self-destruction, both sharing couplets to drive the theme home. “The Only Unforgivable Thing,” a seven-minute lament with gorgeous guitar from Steve Rothery, is about how difficult it is to let go and live. And in the astounding 12-minute closer “Neverland,” Hogarth hits upon a line that is both self-loathing and inspirational: “I want to be someone someone would want to be.” I cannot explain to you the joy of listening to the ecstatic eight-minute widescreen playout that ends the record.

And then there is “Ocean Cloud,” perhaps my favorite Marillion song. It is about Donald Allum, who rowed across the Atlantic in 1987, and nearly died in the process. The song is just about 18 minutes long, but you’ll never notice. Between Hogarth’s impassioned delivery, the abundance of brilliant melodies, and the uncannily watery music that ebbs and flows through it, this piece will knock you flat. Better than that, though, it will fill you with terror and joy and wonder, and make you feel something new every few seconds.

That’s Marillion at their best, when they’re creating technically advanced, powerful music that cuts right to the emotional center. It’s head music you feel. They’re equally adept at the extended epic and the five-minute pop song – see “You’re Gone,” which landed in the British top 10 through sheer fan willpower. Whatever they’re doing, Marillion is always trying to move you. The best music always is, of course, but so few bands manage it as often as this one does.

The best thing about Marbles is that it shouldn’t exist, and in many ways, that’s the best thing about Marillion, too. The world just isn’t set up to support a band like this one, which is why they now rely on the people who love them, the people who have been touched by their music, and would do anything to hear more. That’s a level of loyalty very few bands enjoy, which ought to tell you something, and one listen to Marbles will tell you why. It’s one of the very best from a band I love deeply. It’s the kind of record that will change your life.

Go here. You won’t regret it.

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Next week, hopefully the Lost Dogs, but also the Black Keys, Hammock, the National and LCD Soundsystem. Or some variation thereof. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Strap yourselves in, folks, it’s gonna be a long one.

I usually like to give myself at least a week with any new release before I write about it. I think it’s much easier to properly assess music, and one’s own reaction to it, given time and repeated listens. But we’ve just started what promises to be the most expensive, relentless couple of new release months in a long, long time. I want to get to as many of these as I can, and that means, in order to keep my head above water, I’m going to have to form my opinions and get them out there faster than I’d normally like.

Still, I did form pretty strong impressions of all of these records the first time through, so I’m comfortable with what you’re about to read. If I do happen to change my mind in the coming weeks about any of them, I’ll be sure to let you know. For now, here’s a quick roundup of some new things I’ve bought recently. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle. We’re off.

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I’m still not sure what to make of the Hold Steady.

I first heard them four years ago, when I picked up Boys and Girls in America on a recommendation. I enjoyed their Springsteen-but-louder sound – I actually found myself pumping my fist in the air a couple of times – but I figured they probably couldn’t keep that style going for too long. Springsteen ran out of ideas more than a decade ago, and no matter how much I liked their imitation once, if this band repeats it too often they run the risk of becoming the alt-rock Bon Jovi.

Apparently, Craig Finn and his merry band agree with me, because over their subsequent two efforts, they’ve clearly been going somewhere else. The problem is, they’re not quite there yet. Stay Postitve cranked up the amps and emphasized the band’s punk roots, and now the new Heaven is Whenever goes the opposite direction, slowing things down and veering away from their stock-in-trade anthems.

And the lack of soaring choruses simply doesn’t work. This album is front-loaded with its most obvious, insipid rockers. “The Sweet Part of the City” is (dare I say it) boring, and “Soft in the Center” isn’t much better. These are basic, three-chords-and-a-thesaurus tunes, and while Finn still has a way with a description and a turn of phrase, the music puts me to sleep. Things improve slightly with the more mellow “The Weekenders” and the down-and-dirty “The Smidge,” but this album doesn’t really get going until track five, “Rock Problems.”

It’s here that the Hold Steady brings back the old anthemic sound, and it’s still stirring. “I just can’t sympathize with your rock and roll problems,” Finn spits, then replies to himself, “Isn’t this what we wanted? Some major rock and roll problems?” Then the guitar solo (in harmony!) comes in, and all is right in the Hold Steady world. Now, I’m certainly not advocating a full-time return to their Boys and Girls sound, but here, after four fair-to-middling meanders, it works.

And somehow, it makes the following experiments more palatable. “We Can Get Together” is the album’s slowest and most sincere, and its wonderful coda gives the album its title: “Heaven is whenever we can get together, sit down on your floor and listen to your records.” There’s no chorus, but this will do. “Hurricane J” rocks like a house on fire, complete with “woah-oh” backing vocals, and “Barely Breathing” takes on a bit of a jazzy rhythm that works well. There are horns and clarinets on this one, and they slot right into the sound. But those are the good ones, all lumped together.

The album ends with a massive orchestrated epic called “A Slight Discomfort,” and it’s everything that’s good and bad about the new directions taken here. It’s like no Hold Steady song ever written, starting off drowned in reverb and ending with a wall of sound, and it’s clearly meant to be the last song to end all last songs. But for most of its 7:14, it’s pretty boring – its chorus is not sufficiently different from its verses, its connective tissue is paper-thin, and its two-chords-repeated-forever second half had me reaching for the stop button.

Finn and company are clearly trying not to be “that anthem band” any more, setting out for undiscovered countries. But if Heaven is Whenever is any indication, the big working-class singalong is what they do best. When they try other things, the results are, let’s say, less than spectacular. This album is obviously a transitional effort – you can all but see the cocoon being spun – but until they get where they’re going, I’m not convinced they’re going to make an album as good as Boys and Girls in America. I want them to change and grow, but I want them to get better at the same time, and as of this record, they’re not.

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I really like the idea of the New Pornographers.

They’re a collective of like-minded musicians, each with their own well-regarded projects, who come together once every couple of years, totally without ego, to collaborate on sweet pop songs. Neko Case has her own successful solo career going, as does Carl Newman (on a smaller scale), and Dan Bejar has both Destroyer and Swan Lake on his docket. And yet, when they join forces, they’re like a family. Well, like a family that likes each other. No one hogs the spotlight, no one saves the good songs for their own records, everyone works together in perfect harmony.

That ideal carries me through even their weaker efforts, and 2007’s Challengers was certainly weak. Slow, sluggish, nearly devoid of interesting melodies, it was a disappointing follow-up to the Pornographers’ masterpiece, Twin Cinema. Thankfully, the ship seems righted with the just-released Together, and I have to think the album title was chosen to emphasize the members’ revitalized commitment to this band. When they’re on, the Pornographers are awesome.

They’re frequently on here. The first few tracks are wonderful, especially “Crash Years,” with its smack-you-if-you’re-not-ready strings, and “Your Hands,” a pulse-pounder with a great rhythm. By this point in the record, you’ll notice that the Pornographers share vocals a lot more on this album than in the past, harmonizing with each other and even trading off lines mid-song. It’s indicative of the bond that this album celebrates.

Still and all, I don’t think this record quite rises to the level of the first three. None of these songs are lousy, or forgettable, but none of them stand up and force me to notice them either. “Up in the Dark” is probably my favorite, mainly for its killer acoustic riffing and Case’s delightful vocals on the chorus – it’s like something Yes might have once written. “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco” is the prettiest New Porn song in some time (Case really shines on this one), and closer “We End Up Together” finishes things on a joyous round robin. But I don’t remember much about songs like “A Bite Out of My Bed” or “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk.”

Together is a solid little pop album, crafted with love, and sweetened with strong vocals from our three stars. (Yes, there are five other Pornographers, but come on. We’re here for Case, Newman and Bejar.) There’s nothing wrong with it at all, but now that the bond between them is strengthened, I expect great things in the future.

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I know this is cause to take away my indie cred card (once again), but I’m digging Hanson’s new single, “Thinkin’ Bout Somethin’.” It’s the first single from their fifth album, Shout it Out, and it has an appealing Jackson 5 vibe to it. The horns are all kinds of sweet, too.

I’ve liked Hanson for a while, and been impressed with their transformation into genuine soul-rock songwriters. But every time I bring them up, someone asks me about “MMM-Bop,” as if the Hanson siblings are all still pre-teens. They’re dealing with it better than I am, honestly – they seem to have embraced their tween-pop past, while at the same time remaining cooly confident in their new material. That’s a healthy attitude, but I bet they’re sick of hearing about “MMM-Bop” too.

I told you that story to tell you this one: I bet New York trio Nada Surf is just as sick of hearing about “Popular.” It must be galling that this half-spoken novelty song is still the only hit Nada Surf has ever scored, despite going on to make one excellent album after another over the last 15 years. Lucky for us, they keep soldiering on, delivering sweet guitar-pop wonders and ignoring the critics who want to drag them back into the ‘90s.

Their sixth album is another winner. Its title is a palindrome – If I Had a Hi-Fi – and it contains 12 superb covers, from sources well-known and obscure. In fact, I only knew a couple of these songs, so as far as I’m concerned, this may as well be a new album of Nada Surf tunes. That’s not to say they don’t mine some famous catalogs. The band puts a joyous spin on Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” and cranks out a rip-snorting version of the Moody Blues’ “Question.” I’m also fond of their take on Spoon’s “The Agony of Lafitte.” And most surprisingly, they do Kate Bush’s great “Love and Anger” as jangle-pop, wonderfully.

But I’d never heard the rest of these tunes, and considering the amount of work it would take to track the originals down, these versions may well be the only ones I ever experience. That’s just fine by me, because they all make wonderful Nada Surf numbers. Bill Fox’s “Electrocution” starts things off with a lovely melody – it’s kind of amazing what a good singer Matthew Caws has turned out to be – and the Dwight Twilley Band’s “You Were So Warm” could fit on any one of Nada Surf’s last three albums.

Caws sings in French for Coralie Clement’s “Bye Bye Beaute,” and in Spanish for Mercromina’s “Evolucion.” The band gets precious on instrumental closer “I Remembered What I was Going to Say,” by Caws’ sister’s band, the Silly Pillows. Throughout this record, bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot are rock-solid. (Elliot’s percussion work on “Agony of Lafitte” is a fine tribute to Spoon’s original.)

I know I’ve merely described this record instead of really digging in, but there isn’t much to say. Nada Surf plays simple and simply appealing rock, and they’ve made each of these songs their own. This is another fine record from these guys, and if you haven’t caught up with them since their flannel days, you definitely should.

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And speaking of covers, we have this: a full-album run-through of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon by Oklahoma’s favorite sons, the Flaming Lips.

Actually, the full title of this thing is The Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, which is quite the mouthful, but tells you all you need to know. Stardeath and White Dwarfs is led by Dennis Coyne, brother of Lips main man Wayne Coyne, and they’re cut from the same cloth. What we have here is two of the weirdest bands of our time paying tribute to one of the weirdest records ever to top the Billboard charts, by one of the weirdest bands of their time. It all fits.

I’m just not sure why it exists, and it’s up to the album itself to convince me it should. I’ve heard The Dark Side of the Moon probably 400 times, and I’ve become rather sick of catching songs from it on classic rock radio through the years. Even so, the original record is an absolute masterpiece, a perfect mix of studio craft, songwork and theme. It’s awesome as it is, so why would we need another version?

Granted, this is very different. There’s an appealing looseness to this take, where the original Dark Side was almost clinically precise. The Lips do their blatty-drum psych-rock thing all over “Breathe,” slicing up those watery slide guitar lines with jagged, noisy screeches. “On the Run” is completely rewritten as a guitar piece with occasional splashes of synth color. Peaches sings the wordless vocal lines of “The Great Gig in the Sky” admirably, while the Lips play a crazy-ass loudloudLOUD groove behind her. Henry Rollins is here to speak all the background mutterings, including the closing “matter of fact it’s all dark.”

While “Money” and “Us and Them,” perhaps the most recognizable of these songs, remain largely unchanged, the bizarre instrumentation (and Wayne Coyne’s vocal distortion) add a new twist. “Us and Them,” in particular, works well here, but it’s hard to mess up that song. It’s just lovely, no matter how you do it. And Stardeath essentially recites “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” (albeit quite a bit louder), ending this album much like Floyd ended theirs.

In the end, then, this doesn’t quite justify its own existence. It’s a fun little exercise, a slightly weirder spin on an already weird piece of music, but nothing essential. That doesn’t stop it from being fun, of course, but I’d like to hear the Lips take on something that isn’t quite as well-known, and bring a lot more of their own oddness to it. When I feel like hearing The Dark Side of the Moon, I’m probably not going to reach for this version too often.

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We are rushing headlong toward the end of my Top 20 of the 2000s list. Are you excited? Settle down, soldier, here’s the next installment.

#4. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002).

It’s tempting to think of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as overrated. It got an initial burst of critical acclaim when Warner Bros. refused to release it, finally shuffling it off to subsidiary Nonesuch. Many folks, myself included, gave it that little extra bit of cachet for sticking it to the man – for an album Warner didn’t like much, they certainly spent a lot of money on it, even paying for it twice. That’s a great rock and roll story.

Another is the feud (and eventual split) between Wilco leaders Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett, which came to a head while creating Yankee. If you’re interested in that, it’s documented in wince-inducing detail in the terrific film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. But neither of these stories are about the music on the disc, and some have suggested that the legend of this record gets more attention than its content. Let’s rectify that right now, shall we?

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album unlike any other I own. Without question, its troubled creation contributed to its haunted tone, but even if I’d never seen the movie or heard the stories, this album would still freak me out. It was recorded before September 11, 2001, but no other piece of music so effectively captures what it was like to live in a post-9/11 world, where the ground could disappear from under your feet at any second, and you were hurtling along toward an uncertain future at speeds you couldn’t control.

The Wilco boys had already established themselves as traditionalists on their dynamite first two albums, and they took aim at that notion on their third, the sloppy-yet-satisfying Summerteeth. But nothing could have prepared their audience for Yankee, the album on which they shot for the stratosphere. Remarkably, they did so without abandoning their American rock and pop roots – it’s the production, the sense in every note of something hovering over the proceedings, waiting to strike, that makes this record what it is. Songs like “War on War” are fairly straightforward, but the chiming alien piano, chilling bursts of noise, and random reverbed banjo layered on top take it somewhere else. It’s like the world is the same, but it has also changed irrevocably.

That’s not to say the songs are weak. On the contrary, melodic wonders like “Jesus Etc.” are Tweedy and Bennett at their best. But had they simply recorded these songs as a live band, this would have been merely the best Wilco album. Instead, they did everything they could to make this album sound… well, off. In places, it feels like it’s falling apart as you listen to it. Even breezy rocker “I’m the Man Who Loves You” leaves you with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. It’s beautifully made, and beautifully unnerving.

At moments here, Tweedy references events he could not have seen coming, like the bit in “Jesus Etc.” about tall buildings shaking and sad voices escaping. It’s an eerily prescient record, which only adds to its spookiness. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot leaves you with an unnamable, inexplicable dread, as if the band knows something of the future, and isn’t telling. It is one of the most perfectly-crafted works of the decade, a series of disconnected songs that sound like a single thought. This album ends with its sweetest and most unsettling song, “Reservations,” on which Tweedy sings about how nothing in the world makes sense, but he has one thing to cling to. It is perhaps Wilco’s most resonant moment.

It’s become clear in the ensuing years that Yankee is also the Last Great Wilco Album. After Bennett’s departure, Tweedy grew lazy, and started throwing in the weirdness just for the sake of it. On Yankee, every freaked-out moment makes sense in context, but nothing can explain or justify the 12 minutes of white noise that marred follow-up A Ghost is Born, or the total lack of compelling songwriting on Wilco’s later records. They’re still a fine band, but they’ll never again truly mean something, like they did in 2002. And Bennett’s death last year was like sealing that fate, once and for all.

It’s almost like this is the album Tweedy and company were born to make. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sounds like 2002 to me, while seeming timeless. More than any other album I heard, it encapsulates the wonder and dread of the first half of the 2000s – it is immediately familiar, and yet alien. It’s a world we’ve all lived in, but it’s never looked like this before. It is uncertain, unpredictable, like the moment just before the roller coaster begins its sickening descent. None of us were sure what the next day would bring, and everything we thought we knew seemed strange and distant.

That Wilco captured this unintentionally, before the world changed, is somehow miraculous. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album unlike any other, and even its creators had no idea what it would mean. That’s the best kind of magic – the accidental kind. In some ways, it’s the only kind there is, and as we rise from our beds each morning, stepping out into the unknown, all we can do is hope for it.

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Next week, even more! Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink, I’m so tired, my mind is on the blink…

Seriously, folks, it’s been a hell of a week. I know I was supposed to use this week’s column to catch up on new releases I haven’t reviewed yet. I’m right now looking at the pile – there are albums here from MGMT, Roky Erickson, Gogol Bordello, Caribou, Sharon Jones, the Apples in Stereo, and David Byrne& Fatboy Slim just waiting for some attention. In truth, I simply haven’t had time to listen and absorb most of them. So instead of catching up, I’m afraid I’m about to fall further behind.

Because next week begins the deluge, the two strongest months of new music I can remember. My bank account is not going to be happy, but my ears certainly will be. Since I’m nearly ready to slip into a coma right now, I think I’m just going to give you a preview of the coming goodness, review my #5 album of the 2000s, and call it a week. Apologies in advance, but I need a break.

I’m considering this more of a gathering of strength, though, a respite before the next big battle. It’s going to be a very good summer, and here are dozens of reasons why:

May 4 is the start of the hurricane. Here’s what we’re getting (deep breath): The Hold Steady’s Heaven is Whenever, Minus the Bear’s Omni, the New Pornographers’ Together, Broken Social Scene’s Forgiveness Rock Record, Tonic’s new self-titled album, Deftones’ Diamond Eyes, Justin Currie’s second solo LP The Great War, the Flaming Lips’ take on The Dark Side of the Moon, Richard Julian’s Girls Need Attention, and a live album from Extreme called Take Me Alive. Okay, that last one doesn’t quite fit, but I like the band, so sue me.

We’ll also be hearing from something called the Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt. I only mention this because their album title is my favorite of 2010 so far: I Love You! I Love You! I Love You and I’m in Love With You! Have an Awesome Day! Have the Best Day of Your Life! How can it be bad with a name like that?

May 11 is just as good, with new albums from The National (High Violet), the Dead Weather (Sea of Cowards) and Keane (an eight-track EP called Night Train). Keane has me fascinated – the single includes rapping from Somalian MC K’naan, and the other things I’ve heard sound suitably un-Keane. We’ll also get an early-days compilation from garage-rock duo Japandroids and (finally!) the audio half of the Lost Dogs’ Route 66 project, called Old Angel. I hear this one is superb, and the songs on their MySpace page certainly bear that out.

Seven days later, on May 18, we get another flood of stuff. The big ones are Band of Horses (Infinite Arms), the Black Keys (Brothers), and LCD Soundsystem (This is Happening), but I’m equally excited about Suzanne Vega’s new acoustic album (Close Up Vol. 1), the second solo album from Tracey Thorn of Everything But the Girl (Love and its Opposite), and Swedish prog band Pain of Salvation’s tribute to the 1970s (Road Salt). That one’s the first half of a double record, in fact. Also out on May 18 is a deluxe reissue of Exile on Main St., which I would consider the best Rolling Stones album.

May 25 calms down a little, with new things from Crystal Castles, Hank Williams III, Stone Temple Pilots and Soulfly. But I’ve had this date marked off on my calendar for a while, as it’s when Robert Smith finally unleashes the three-CD remaster/reissue of the Cure’s unbeatable Disintegration. This is my favorite Cure record, the one that got me through high school alive, and I can’t wait to hear it in sparkling digital sound.

We get a break on June 1, as Paul Weller’s Wake Up the Nation is the only thing currently scheduled. But June 8 is back to being immense. Here’s the lineup: Rooney’s Eureka, Sia’s We Are Born, Teenage Fanclub’s Shadows, the Chemical Brothers’ Further, Blitzen Trapper’s Destroyer of the Void, and the debut LP from Eric Matthews’ Seinking Ships project, Museum Quality Capture. We’ll also get the new one from Hanson, called Shout it Out, and I know you’re laughing right now, but the single is good, and the album apparently has a smooth Motown vibe to it, so I’m looking forward to it. Quit snickering. They’re good, man!

June 15 will bring us Sarah McLachlan’s first album in seven years, The Laws of Illusion; the Gaslight Anthem’s new one American Slang; Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Mojo; Chris Isaak’s second live album Live at the Fillmore; and the second album from Foals, Total Life Forever. Your local store will also get the first of a four-album series by the Cowboy Junkies, called Renmin Park, but (shh!) you can get it right now from the band.

Eminem leads off June 22 with Recovery, the sequel to Relapse, which wasn’t all that great to begin with, so we’ll see. Stars will release The Five Ghosts, and Helmet will put out Seeing Eye Dog. And speak of the devil, here’s Danzig back again with another doom-laden slab o’ metal called Deth Red Sabaoth. The month is rounded off on June 29 with the new one from the Choir, which is still untitled.

July in 30 seconds: Big Boi, Sun Kil Moon, Hellyeah, Sheryl Crow, and the solo debut of Ours’ Jimmy Gnecco. Also on the horizon: Light Chasers by Cloud Cult, the Beastie Boys’ long-delayed Hot Sauce Committee Vol. 1, Crowded House’s new one Intriguer, a new record from Devo, Iron Maiden’s The Final Frontier, John Mellencamp’s stripped-down No Better Than This, and new ones from the Shins, Rush and Robert Plant. And those are just the ones I know about. Expect more in the year’s back half.

I will need to clone myself at least once to listen to all of this. Be sure to check back here every week and see how I do.

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And now, the next installment in my Top 20 of the 2000s. We’re in the top five now, also known as Records I Know by Heart:

#5. Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (2005).

I liked Death Cab before Plans came out. I think The Photo Album and Transatlanticism are both wonderful little records. But hearing Plans for the first time was like watching a boy genius who’d always shown promise finally come into his own. This remains the band’s most consistent, most heartfelt, most beautiful piece of work, and it’s the one that touches me most deeply. I said this before, but other Death Cab albums are short story collections, while Plans is a novel.

This album is a dark and fully-formed treatise on what it means to be a finite being, one who grows old and loses touch and dies, alone. It is about the different ways people fail to connect, fail to communicate. It’s about how the promise of youth melts away, about how love is watching someone die, about how we all must be happy with our measly sum. It is powerful and direct and painful and heartbreaking – some sections of this album are almost too difficult for me to listen to. And it does all of that in 44 minutes.

Some criticized this album for not rocking enough, for settling into a mid-pace and rarely leaving it. But I think the album sets a dreamy tone from the outset, and maintains it – I’m always perplexed when bands rip up an atmosphere they’ve meticulously created. Only “Soul Meets Body” and “Crooked Teeth” find the big beats, and even those are more pretty than abrasive. Every other song here is a masterpiece of restraint and mood, capturing the magic and loss of growing up, growing old and growing apart.

The whole is much greater than the parts, but some of these parts are simply magnificent. “Different Names for the Same Thing” begins with an old-time piano and Ben Gibbard’s high, clear, unmistakable voice, but soon develops into a whirlpool of sound. “Your Heart is an Empty Room” is deceptively simple, but packs a melodic punch, and a lyrical one as well, Gibbard singing about the freedom that comes with losing everything you own.

The concluding trilogy is still Death Cab for Cutie’s finest hour. “What Sarah Said” details several agonizing hours in a hospital waiting room in wrenching detail, Chris Walla’s piano simultaneously adding hope and taking it away. The final minutes, with the band arcing into nowhere while Gibbard repeats “who’s gonna watch you die” are amazing – you can feel the pain of our narrator being kept from the one he loves at the end. “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” keeps the piano framework for a song of separation, and finale “Stable Song,” a reworking of the much-longer “Stability,” finds our narrator trying to come to terms with life as it is. “The gift of memory is an awful curse, with age it just gets much worse, but I don’t mind…” It’s a gorgeous way to end.

But with all that, it’s the simple, unadorned “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” that captures my heart. It is a song from a lover to his dying beloved, performed with nothing but Gibbard’s voice and guitar. “You and me, we’ve seen everything to see, from Bangkok to Calgary, and the soles of your shoes are all worn down, the time for sleep is now, but it’s nothing to cry about, ‘cause we’ll hold each other soon…” In just a few words and notes, Gibbard finds something real and deep, and sings it true.

You don’t get the full effect of Plans without listening straight through, though – the promise of “I Will Follow You” unfulfilled by “What Sarah Said,” the joy of youth in “Soul Meets Body” becoming the thoughtful resignation of old age in “Stable Song.” It’s a journey, one that becomes more real to me with each passing year. If Death Cab never makes another album this good (and the follow-up, Narrow Stairs, was good, but not this good), then I will chalk this up as one of those rare, precious, inexplicable little miracles that sometimes happen. I feel pretty confident that I will love this album for the rest of my life, and when I look back, old as the singer of “Stable Song,” I hope I feel as peaceful as he does.

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One final note, speaking of old age: I bought the 25th anniversary edition of Mr. Mister’s Welcome to the Real World this week, an album I loved when I was 11. I still like it – it’s a well-made slice of synth-driven pop with some killer melodies – but seeing the words “25th Anniversary Edition” made me feel older than dirt. 25 years! Wow.

Next week, well, just look above to see what’s coming next week. I’ll pick a few and give you my first impressions. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.